The party’s not over yet for Tampa Bay’s improbable, unbelievable rise from worst to first in the American League

SCOTT JACOBS

Contact Disney, start sending them the scripts. This is officially a Hollywood story.

The Tampa Bay Rays knocked out the champs, and now they’re four wins away from being the champs.

Ten years of futility? Forgotten.

Ten years of misery? Gone.

The Tampa Bay Rays erased ten years of epically bad baseball in one season, and guess what folks: they’re still chugging.

Game one of the World Series opens Wednesday in Tampa Bay.

Phillies-Rays, and isn’t it fitting that Tampa Bay has to knock out another Philadelphia team en route to a championship? In 2002 they took out the Eagles in the NFC Championship game. In 2004 the Lightning knocked out the Flyers to win the NHL’s Eastern Conference. And now in 2008, Tampa Bay has a chance to triple the city of Brotherly Love’s misery.

But that’s another story for another day.

Tonight the story was the same story that has shocked baseball throughout 2008: The Rays rise to prominence.

And ya know what? We shouldn’t be shocked by anything this team does any more.

Popularity: 5% [?]