The baseball season is over and I’m sad, but I’m satisfied. The Trop — which despite the malicious slander spread by the talking heads from ESPN, is actually a wonderful, intimate place to watch a ballgame — will be shuttered until the spring. The memories of a season in which the Rays came from nine games back on September 1 to squash the hopes of the Boston Red Sox and win the wild card will remain in memory forever.
For the second year in a row our Rays reached the playoffs and then were eliminated by the Texas Rangers — like the Rays, an intelligently run organization that picks their players with care and teaches them how to win.
Before the game, which the Rays lost 4-3, Josh Hamilton, the former Rays prospect who developed a serious drug habit and then found God and stardom with the Rangers, was asked if he ever thought about what it would have been like to be playing with the Rays.
He surprised everyone by admitting that he had been thinking about just that the day before as he stood in the outfield and looked over the sold-out crowd of 29,000 Rays fans.
“The fans expected to see me with the Rays,” he said. “Would I have liked to have done it? Absolutely. But it didn’t work out.”
That was because the Rays, after years of putting up with Hamilton’s drug addiction, finally got fed up and put the slugger on irrevocable waivers. He was drafted by the Cincinnati Reds, who just as stupidly traded him to Texas. The Rays had put him on waivers because the brain trust was certain no one would take the drug-addicted Hamilton. They were wrong, one of the very few mistakes made by the Rays' front office over the years. One could argue it’s been the single biggest mistake of the new owner’s regime.
This year Hamilton, an All Star the past four seasons, hit .298 with 25 homers and 94 RBIS. Last year when he was named the American League Most Valuable Player, he batted .359 with 32 home runs and 100 RBIs. Had he been playing with the Rays, we’d have been playing in the World Series in 2010, not Texas, and chances are we’d be in the Series again this year. So much for rewriting history.
This team — one that never gives up — almost got to fight another day. The Rays were down two games to one in a five-game series. With Texas leading Game Four 4-2 in the ninth and star closer Nefty Feliz on the mound, the raucous crowd of 29,000 was roaring with expectation. With one out Sean Rodriguez took a 3-2 pitch for a ball and headed for first. As Casey Kotchman came to the plate, the noise of the crowd reached unprecedented proportions.
With a two-run lead Texas chose not to hold Rodriguez on, and he took second. At the plate Kotchman was up against the 98-mile-an-hour lightning bolts thrown by Feliz. There was one out.
“Channel your inner Dan Johnson,” someone in the stands yelled at Kotchman. Dan Johnson had homered in the ninth inning of the final game of the regular season with two outs in the ninth to keep us from losing the wild card race. It was a miracle of miracles, and the Rays fans weren’t settling for anything less than another one.
When Kotchman singled between first and second, Rodriguez raced home to make the score 4-3, putting the Trop in an absolute frenzy. There’s no other way to describe it. In our hearts we were sure Matt Joyce or Desmond Jennings would find a way to allow us to play another day. It’s what teams of destiny do.
Feliz threw, and Joyce, who had homered against the Yankees to win Game 161, popped meekly to Adrian Beltran in foul territory near third. Two outs. The cheering grew. Joyce may have failed, but Jennings surely would succeed. The night before he had hit two long home runs. He had hero written all over him.
A home run here would win it. We could picture the ball soaring majestically and landing in the left field bleachers. But we also had to admit we could picture Feliz striking him out. The moment was gut-wrenching. It’s what makes baseball the greatest of all sports.
Elliot Johnson, who has speed, ran for Kotchman, and he led off first. Feliz threw, and Jennings swung and hit an easy bouncer to Ian Kinsler at second. Kinsler flipped to the shortstop, Elvis Andrus, at second, and the game and the season were over.
You felt a punch in the stomach. It was as though someone had let the air out of a thousand balloons. The disappointment was palpable.
And yet the chatter in the stands around me wasn’t of despair but of past and future glory. I have said this for a while now. Not only are Rays fans the most knowledgeable, they are the most forgiving. Years of rooting for Esteban Yan and Vinnie Castilla does that to you.
“We’ve made the playoffs three of the last four years, and next year we’re going to be even better,” said a Rays fan a couple rows behind me.
“We’re in a good place now,” said another.
It’s true. We are in a good place. No other team in baseball has the starting pitching the Rays will have: David Price, James Shields, Wade Davis, Jeremy Hellickson, Jeff Neimann, Alex Cobb, and perhaps the best of them all, Matt Moore. And there are two starting studs in the wings, Alex Torres and Chris Archer. The bullpen is also stellar, but after last year’s staff all left, I would have a hard time predicting who will remain.
Desmond Jennings, BJ Upton, and Matt Joyce, an All Star this year, form a young, talented outfield, and Evan Longoria, Sean Rodriguez/Reid Brignac, Ben Zobrist, and Casey Kotchman form a very talented defensive infield. Add Johnny Damon to the mix at DH, and this team did well enough to win 91 games in the regular season.
Kotchman and Damon are both free agents. When asked whether they’d be back, Andrew Friedman would only say, “It depends on the makeup of the team next year.” In other words, they’ll still be here until the organization can find better or unless they have to pay too much to keep them.
Where are we hurting most? We desperately need to trade for a catcher who can field and hit, a rare commodity. Can we get a Molina, any Molina? Can we find someone as talented as Texas catcher Mike Napoli? Andrew Friedman has a top pitcher or two to trade in his quest to land one.
If there’s a silver lining to the season being at an end, at least the city will now be able to fix the Trop’s roof. I have it on good authority that our citizens have shot more than a hundred bullet holes into the Trop’s roof, put there by passersby in cars who like to bring their pistols and as they drive by use the Trop for target practice. The NRA should be proud.
I love the Rays, and I love the Trop, and I can’t wait for next year. Even though Josh Hamilton plays for Texas, I look forward to our playing in the World Series next year.
This article appears in Sep 29 – Oct 5, 2011.