That defeat cost more now, because by itself, Lidge and the Philadelphia Phillies World Series should be open to visitors as the Tampa Bay Rays, the team with the best record this year as local in the Major Leagues.The first game is tomorrow night in the singular Tropicana Field. The truth is that very few people imagined a Fall Classic between these two teams when, during a preseason game in March, the rookie of the Rays Evan Longoria will connect a home run to Cole Hamels.
It will be a duel between one of the oldest franchises of the largest against newer ones. The common denominator? A history of failures.
The Philadelphia is the team that accumulates more defeats in the history of professional leagues in the United States and have only once won the World Series. Laughingstock since it debuted in 1998 with Arizona, the newly-Rays last year amassed the worst mark of the largest.
But 2008 has been totally different for the Rays, with a 180 degree turn crowned on Sunday to win 3-1 to the Boston Red Sox in the decisive seventh game of the series championship in the American League.
While a series between the Chicago Cubs and Boston would have been more attractive, the presence of Jimmy Rollins and Ryan Howard, both winners of the Most Valuable Player Award of the National League, along with B. J. Upton, Carlos Peña, Matt Garza, Dioner Navarro and Chase Utley will allow the fan to see new faces.
And once again trigger the debate always measured in October to a team that had to fight to the last and one that comes with plenty of rest. The Philadelphia will have a week without playing at the time of the first game, after having defeated in five games to the Los Angeles Dodgers for the National League pennant.
"What matters is to emerge victorious. We would have preferred to do it in four, "said the pilot of the Rays, Joe Maddon, hours before the seventh game.
While Maddon was coach with the Angels in 2002 when it won the World Series, this pairing is characterized by a new generation of ballplayers. Only one in the Rosters have connected a hit in the classic. It is the Japanese So Taguchi, an outfielder for the Phillis.
Curious thing: the Philadelphia are the only team to which the Rays had so far taken him along their bad years. Tampa has foja of 10-5 for life in front of them.
Philadelphia is in its first World Series since 1993.
