TAMPA BAY DEVIL RAYS

New teams in baseball have to pay dues before they enjoy success at the Major League level. The amount varies from team to team. For the New York Mets, it was eight years of player development and growing pains; for Houston and San Diego it was much longer. On the other hand, Florida and Arizona enjoyed relatively quick success.

For whatever reason, the Tampa Bay Rays are being asked to pay a long and heavy price before they will be allowed to feast at the table of success. It is a price they are still paying.

For years, local politicians and business leaders in St. Petersburg and Tampa Bay had been trying to win a baseball franchise for central Florida. They made a heavy play for one of the expansion franchises in 1993, but lost to Denver and Miami. Having already built a domed stadium, these local leaders next tried to lure the Chicago White Sox and later the San Francisco Giants to the Sunshine State. Both deals fell apart. Ironically, when the area was awarded a franchise for the 1998 season, the team was named for Tampa Bay although the domed stadium, now called Tropicana Field, is in St. Petersburg.

The Tampa Bay Devil Rays opened for business on March 31, 1998, losing to Detroit's Tigers 11-6. The next day, they scored their first-ever win, over the same Tigers 11-8. The Devil Rays went for experience and veteran presence on their expansion roster, going for names like Wade Boggs, Fred McGriff, Paul Sorrento, Wilson Alvarez and Roberto Hernandez. That strategy did not work. In fact, almost nothing Tampa Bay has done to date has worked. The Devil Rays finished last in the American League East in each of their first six seasons, the nadir being a 55-106 record in 2002.

Boggs and McGriff provided a few franchise highlights. Boggs recorded his three-thousandth hit at Tropicana Field on August 7, 1999. It was a home run, making Boggs the first member of this exclusive club to homer for his milestone hit. McGriff had a stellar 1999 season for the Rays (thirty-two home runs, one-hundred four runs batted in, .310) and hit his four-hundredth career home run on June 2, 2000 against the Mets at Shea Stadium. In September of that year, McGriff hits his two-hundredth career home run in the American League, making he and Frank Robinson the only two players to hit at least two-hundred career homers in each league.

After five straight last place finishes, the Devil Rays hired Lou Piniella to manage for the 2003 season. In his first year, the Rays made it six in a row in the cellar with a ninety-nine loss season. In 2004, Piniella began to show some results, forging the team's young talent into a 42-41 record halfway through the season. The team's lack of depth caught up to it in the second half and the team finished 70-91, but that record was good for fourth place in the American League East.

Among the young talent Piniella helped develop was Aubrey Huff, who hit .313 in 2002, then hit his stride in 2003 (thirty-four home runs, one-hundred seven runs batted in, .311) and 2004 (twenty-nine home runs, one-hundred four runs batted in, .297) and dynamic Carl Crawford, who became a .301 hitter in 2005 while stealing fifty-five, fifty-nine and forty-six bases in the last three seasons.

After the strong first half and the fourth place finish in 2004, expectations were higher for 2005. The Devil Rays failed to meet them - in fact they regressed, posting a 67-95 record, although Jorge Cantu burst on the scene (twenty-eight home runs, one-hundred seventeen runs batted in, .286) and rookie Johnny Gomes whacked twenty-one home runs. Piniella resigned at season's end, unhappy over what he perceived as the team's lack of commitment to winning.

The key challenge for the Rays is cultivating a competitive pitching staff. To date, very few of their starting pitchers have recorded winning seasons and Wilson Alvarez's 14-12 mark in 1998 represents the team's most productive output by a starter. A few rays of hope came through in 2005 as Scott Kazmir was 10-9 and Mark Hendrickson was 11-8.

TAMPA BAY RAYS

What's in a name change? How about immediate success and a truly amazing Cinderalla season! The Rays dropped the Devil from their name officially in 2008 and throughout the season were a devil of a team to beat not only recording their first winning season, but making it all the way to the 2008 World Series,