SCOTT JACOBS

Okay, so they’re not going to Disneyworld. Well, not yet at least, but Tampa Bay is going to the World Series after holding off the pesky World Champion Red Sox in a thrilling game seven. It lived up to the billing, this game lived up the hype, and when it was said and done, the Red Sox had their heads down, and the Rays had their head doused. O what a series. What a night. What an amazing underdog story for the ages.

Bottom of the 7th
Willie Aybar crushes a towering home run off of John Lester, and the Rays extend their lead to 3-1. Aybar has scored two out of Tampa Bay’s three runs tonight. What an unlikely hero he has been.

Top of the 8th inning
Garza is cruising along when a routine ground ball skips off of Jason Bartlett’s wrist, and into the outfield. That’s it for Garza who was brilliant tonight, throwing 118 pitches and striking out nine. Truly the game of a lifetime for Garza, who was acquired in that incredible off-season trade for him and Bartlett. The Twins got Delmon Young. Safe to say that the Rays are happy right now with that trade. Garza allowed just two hits in his seven innings and was simply brilliant.

Man on first, no outs, you can feel the tension at the Trop.

Enter Dan Wheeler. Can he seal the deal? Here we go!

Coco Crisp quicky gets a base hit and now there’s two on with no outs. Do the Red Sox haveanother comeback in them? Because they’re going to need it. And how fitting that they have to overcome a 3-1 deficit, to finish off their unlikely 3-1 series comeback. Wheeler throws it into the dirt to Dustin Pedroia, who hit a home run in the first, Boston’s only run of the game to date, and the Red Sox are building something potentially big here.

1-1 count, and Pedroia pops out. Boy he just missed that one. Middle of the plate, just got under it. That’s all for Wheeler.

J.P. Howell will take the mound for the Rays. He comes in to face the struggling David Ortiz, who has really disappeared in this series with the exception of that game five homer. Ortiz hits the ball on the ground, and the Rays just get Crisp, who was trying to break up a potential double play, instead of trying to get into second. Tough break for Boston, and now there’s two outs.

Rays are now four outs from the World Series.

Crisp really should have gone for the bag there.

The Rays will bring in their fourth pitcher of the night, Chad Bradford. Bradford throws three straight balls to open the count, and after a few strikes, walks Kevin Youkilis. What a game so far. Boston has just three hits on the night, but a fourth one will tie this game up.

Bases loaded and the Rays are bringing in the rookie, David Price. What a gutsy call bringing in the rookie with the season on the line.

Price made his debut at Yankee Stadium on September 14th, surrendering just 3 hits and 2 runs in 5 plus innings against New York, but this is different. He can’t afford to allow anything here.

Price comes in and throws a strike to J.D. Drew. Crowd on their feet, an AL pennant hanging in the balance. Strike two. Price misse, ball one. The crowd is going to pee themselves in excitement if he gets Drew here. Price pitches, and strike three. He struck him out! What a pitch, a little low, but Drew couldn’t check his swing, and Price gets out of the jam.

Tampa Bay is three outs away from the World Series.

Bottom of the ninth
Tampa Bay was retired in order in the top of the ninth, and here we are: 3-1, three outs away from the most improbable AL champs in a very long time. Price will pitch the ninth folks. What an unbelievable story this kid has been. He went 12-1 in the minors, and now he’s on the big stage with the chance to deliver an AL pennant to Tampa Bay.

Do the Red Sox have one last miracle in them? Cause they’ll need it if they want to continue defending their championship.

Bay, Kotsay, and Varitez due up in the ninth.

And how fitting is it that the Price, Tampa Bay’s number one pick in 2007, gets the ball with the chance to send this young, historically awful franchise to the Fall Classic.

The count is full, and Price throws a ball. Bay is on quickly in the ninth. The Red Sox have a man on with no out, and the tying run steps to the plate. Price has to be a little nervous. He’s never had a save in his life, never-mind the chance to win a game seven.

Mark Kotsay steps to the plate, and he bunts? Kind of odd decision there. 2-2 count, and Price strikes him out! Outside corner what a pitch by the rookie. Two outs away from the World Series are the Tampa Bay Rays. A double play could end Boston’s title defense here.

Here comes Varitek, who has really struggled this post-season. Starts off 1-1. Fouls it off, 1-2 count. Price needs one more. Throws it high, 2-2. Red Sox really need baserunners here. Price delivers and he struck him out! Are you kidding me? This kid has ice in his veins. Price has struck out two since walking Bay.

Rays are one out away from the Fall Classic.

Aybar is going crazy in the dugout.

Up comes Jed Lowrie. Strike one. The Trop is going nuts right now. Cowbells banging like crazy, this atmosphere is awesome. Ground ball to second, Iwamura’s got it. Rays win, Rays win!

They’re going to the World Series.

9=AL Champs! The World Series is set. The slipper fits. The Rays are going to the World Series! What a performance from Price. Simply unbelievable inning and a third from this kid. Clutch as clutch can be.

Scott Kazmir was the winning pitcher in the All Star Game, that wild and whacky 15 inning thriller, and because of it, Tampa Bay will host the World Series. Not surprisingly Matt Garza is the ALCS MVP. 2-0 with a 1.38 E.R.A, what a series he had.

And inexplicably Garza curses “s*** I’ll take it.”

Eh, it’s TBS. We’ll let it slide.

But holy s*** the Rays are going to the Fall Classic.

There’s a new kingpin in the American League. And it’s no longer the Boston Red Sox.

What a game. What a series. What a night for baseball.

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.

SCOTT JACOBS

The thrill of victory. The agony of blowing a seven run lead. Tampa Bay was so close.

Up 7-0 in the top of the seventh, just nine outs away from the most improbable turnaround in recent sports history, the Rays instead watched their inevitable World Series berth become history.

In what felt like a blink of the eye.

7-0. In football, that lead is nothing, but in baseball it’s a brutal blow to a team too young and stupid to know what they’ve got themselves into. But now, its real. “Like it or not that baby’s coming,” said Paul Rudd in Knocked Up. Well, Tampa Bay, like it or not the Red Sox have awoken, and it’s going to take one heck of an effort to once and for all slay the comeback machine that has become the Red Sox.

Scott Kazmir was brilliant, hurling six innings of two hit ball, but it was the Rays bullpen that blew it. Grant Balfour gave up four runs on four hits in just two thirds of an inning. Then Dan Wheeler, who did not have his stuff tonight, gave up three hits and three runs in an inning and a third, the dagger coming with Coco Crisp’s base hit with two out in the seventh and a man on second. And just like that, Tampa Bay’s lead was gone.

The Rays, who I expected to fold up like a lawn chair, and fall apart, put men on first and second in the ninth, but with one out the Rays grounded into a devastating double play, and you could feel the swing to the Red Sox like a 120 mph wind.

So now, it’s onto game six.

How in the world does Tampa Bay bounce back from this one? Do they brush it off, and move on in “30 minutes” as manager Joe Maddon said? Or does this become an epic back breaker, the type of loss that creates a snowball effect, which could lead to another improbable comeback? Only time will tell of course, but this is what great teams are made of.

The Red Sox are now two wins closer to pulling off another stunner. The Rays are one win away from putting this scare on the backburner, and moving on to host the Phillies in the World Series. They’re also potentially 18 innings from becoming victim number three in Boston’s onslaughts of coming back from 3-1 or worse deficits in this decade.

I liken it to the classic Sonic games. You get to the second to last level, you have three lives left, and today you lost one of those lives. But you still have two shots left. The big bad Phillies await if you can make it. There are no continues. You’ve made it this far, now you’ve got two more chances to seal the deal, otherwise it’s back to the start.

The Rays have gone too far to blow it now.

This fairytale adventure just had to end at home didn’t it? Well, now it will. One way or the other, the fate of the Tampa Bay Rays will be determined in St. Pete.  It’s only fitting that it come down to this.

Super Bowl

SCOTT JACOBS 

It’s the second largest comeback in baseball playoff history, and it comes from the team that just refuses to die! The Boston Red Sox, king of the comeback, have done it again.  Down three games to one, everyone writing them off, the Red Sox not only pushed their way towards another improbable comeback, they came back from the jaws of elimination to prolong a series that back in the top of the seventh inning looked over.

You just can’t make this stuff up.  Down 7-0 in the seventh inning, the Red Sox clawed back to score 4 runs in the 7th, 3 in the 8th, and 1 in the ninth to absolutley shock the Rays.  Now the series stunningly shifts to Tampa Bay, where all the pressure in the world will be on the Rays.  Josh Beckett gets the start against James Shields on Saturday night, and the Red Sox will have a chance to pull another rabbit out of their playoff hats.

Unbelievable.

That Phillies-Rays World Series all of a sudden isn’t a given.  Instead, it will be interesting to see how Tampa Bay responds coming back to the Trop, with a second chance to close things out.  This is the type of loss that could shatter a team’s confidence.  The Rays had two outs in the bottom of the ninth, tied 7-7, when Evan Longoria made a beautiful play only to throw the ball away, and the Sox never locked back.

How can you count out Boston now?  The answer: not sure you can.

Boston’s alive and kicking.  The Rays, are kicking and screaming!

LA-Philly should be a fun series, but the proof is in the pudding that Red Sox-Rays should be an instant classic

SCOTT JACOBS

The ALCS is set! Boston-Tampa Bay. It should be one heck of a brawl. The two AL East rivals, who finished one and 32 last year respectively, are playing for a trip to the World Series. It’s an unbelievable contrast in what should be an unforgettable series. How fitting that the Rays, playing in their first ALCS, will have to dethrone the world champion and their bitter rival Boston to make the Fall Classic. And how fitting that the Red Sox will have to get through the upstart Rays, who will be the home team in this series, to defend their world championship. O boy this one should be fun. On Friday they quick start this baby at 8pm on TBS, and it should be a dandy.

The Red Sox are back in the ALCS for the fourth time since 2003. But this one was really tough. They fought off a game Angels team to claw their way to a series win, and a berth in an ALCS that few wrote them off after the much disputed Manny Ramirez trade.

How fitting that Jason Bay, the man Boston got back to take Manny’s place, scored the winning run. How fitting that the Angels could have taken the lead in the top half of the 9th but failed on a squeeze bunt and the runner on third got thrown out. It was afterall the Angels undoing, and the ultimate reason that the best team in baseball in 2008 is no longer in contention for a championship.

So it’s Red Sox-Rays from St. Pete. C’mon, should it really have been any other way? An all AL East clash for a trip to the World Series. And because the AL won that marathon of an All Star game, the team that wins this series will host the World Series. It will either be Boston, looking to go back to back, or Tampa Bay, hosting their first World Series.

And as I wrote earlier, no Florida team has ever lost a post-season series. Hmm… are you ready? Because I can’t wait!

And TV execs have to be jumping up and down. Yes, they lost the Cubs, but the Dodgers and Phillies will both draw huge, and the Red Sox are a ratings machine. Could you imagine a Dodgers-Red Sox Fall Classic? Doesn’t seem so far fetched now does it? Then again, it no longer seems to crazy that the Rays are four wins away from the World Series.

Wow. Just wow.

ALEX RODRIGUEZ
New York Yankees regular season statistics compiler and October failure, Alex Rodriguez, passed out during the birth of his daughter, Natasha, 3, in 2004 it was revealed this week on an episode of the YES Network’s “YESterday’s.”

“As tough and big as he seems, he is real wimpy around doctors or any type of medical situation,” Cynthia Rodriguez said. “I was, like, not even having a baby; he was the one. The one nurse had a cold cloth on his head, the other nurse had the blood pressure on his arm and my mother was like rubbing his back — and he is passed out on a couch.
“And I am there, in the middle of labor, and really, I am not being paid much attention to besides the doctor and a couple of nurses. And he is there, moaning. In between pushing, I am going, ‘Honey, are you OK?’ And are you breathing? Are you OK?’”

Granted, if I saw a head coming out of my wife’s box, I may go down like the Titanic as well. But, it is not fair to provide A-Rod with any leeway whatsoever. After all, old purple-lips is a $275 million dollar man who has less RBI’s (1) in the postseason since Game 4 of the ALCS than Red Sox pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka (2). A-Rod’s feeble stomach and lack of composure in the maternity ward three-and-a-half years ago yet again documents his lack of testicular fortitude in any kind of precarious moment. Because of his inability to thrive in pressurized situations, the Bronx Bombers will be hard-pressed to capture their 27th championship in team history at any point until Rodriguez’s contract expires in 2017.

• Former Atlanta Braves relief pitcher John Rocker, a village idiot who alienated the city of New York with his racist and homophobic comments, became the latest outcast to finger New York Yankees superstar Alex Rodriguez as an abuser of steroids. On Monday, the obnoxious hick from Georgia claimed that in spring training of 2002 a doctor hired by the Major League Baseball Players Association instructed him and his then Texas Rangers teammate on how to juice-up in a way that is “not going to hurt you.” This is the second time since December that A-Post-Season-Out has been accused of utilizing synthetic testosterone. In the immediate aftermath of the Mitchell Report, Jose Canseco, a dishonorable speaker of truth, said he was flabbergasted that A-Rod wasn’t among the 83 names mentioned in the Director of the Boston Red Sox investigation into performance enhancing drugs.

“All I can say is the Mitchell Report is incomplete,” Canseco said. “I could not believe that (Rodriguez’s) name was not in the report.”

As mind-numbing as it is, in this distorted day and steroid age, Canseco is baseball’s answer to “Honest” Abe Lincoln and if he says the purple-lipped pariah took a banned substance then he likely did.

• Generally, I am not a conspiracy theorist. After reading Gerald Posner’s book “Cased Closed,” I think Lee Harvey Oswald was Jack Kennedy’s lone murderer that terrible afternoon in Dallas, Texas. I am also not a member of the “9-11 Truth Movement.” I think 19 members of Al Qaeda commandeered 4 commercial aircrafts on 9/11/2001 and that’s that. But, with A-Rod’s conspicuous omission from Mitchell’s report, I wonder if a conspiracy is not in our midst. Can one not fathom Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig politely asking his investigator to keep his paws off the heir apparent to his sports all-time home-run crown? Rodriguez, who has 518 round-trippers at 32 years of age, will likely surpass Barry Bonds, the face of steroids, and his 762 lifetime dingers somewhere in the vicinity of the year 2012. Selig needs a dirty Rodriguez as much as he needs a case of herpes and I am confident that he’ll go to great lengths to keep A-Rod’s drug results cleaner than Danny Tanner’s kitchen floor.

• By the way, for those keeping record at home, the Red Sox mediocre pitcher, Daisuke Matsuzaka, has recorded more postseason RBI’s (2) than A-Rod has since game four of the 2004 ALCS. Rodriguez has one RBI since that timeframe.

• Wednesday on Capitol Hill, tarnished baseball icon Roger Clemens exhibited the least impressive performance in a court of law since Stanley Rothenstein’s public defender graced us with his stuttering-self in “My Cousin Vinny.” Under oath, rogue trainer Brian McNamee said he injected Andy Pettitte with human growth hormone and, when pressed, the lefty-ace acknowledged that McNamee was being straightforward with his account. After having his ear placed against the proverbial stove, McNamee revealed that he also injected Clemens better-half, Debbie, with HGH and the pitcher’s wife reluctantly admitted that McNamee was speaking with candor. Are we truly to believe that McNamee is lying solely regarding his accusations towards Clemens? I think not. Clemens is a disgraceful excuse for a husband, friend and ballplayer.

• Since its Valentine’s Day, one needs to wonder what Knicks owner James Dolan and his Head Coach Isiah Thomas have planned for the night. I’ll bet they are going to share a bath in a heart-shaped tub and listen to the sexual melodies of Marvin Gaye from a Bose sound system.

Mitchell Blatt