Once a Punching Bag, Rays Go for Knockout

Boston Dominated Tampa Bay for Years

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla., Oct. 9 -- In those dark days, Tropicana Field was so empty, the sounds of batting practice were indistinguishable from those of the game, and so, too, were the trajectories of the visiting team's line drives and towering fly balls, once the batting practice pitchers ceded the mound to the Tampa Bay Devil Rays' finest arms. In those dark days, the bullies lined up nightly to brutalize the Devil Rays, who sometimes fought back uselessly but mostly just assumed the fetal position and took it.

And no one gave it to them with more frequency or ferocity than the Boston Red Sox. From the Devil Rays' inception in 1998 through 2007, the Red Sox played them 169 times and won 111. The Devil Rays were a horrible team and a horrible franchise -- playing their first 10 seasons at an aggregate 327 games below .500 -- but somehow the Red Sox made them seem even worse, epitomizing Tampa Bay's futility as well as the challenge of competing in the big-money American League East.

"They were beating us up and taking our lunch money," said Jonny Gomes, a veteran of parts of six Tampa Bay teams, "year after year."

On Friday night, the mighty, storied Red Sox will open their fourth American League Championship Series in the past six years, and they will be doing so here, in the building they once owned, against the team -- now known as simply the Rays, having exorcised their Devil -- they used to destroy on a regular basis. Shocking? Only if you didn't notice the impressive collection of talent the Rays were amassing the past few years, or if you didn't see them play this year.

"I think those kids are not afraid -- they'll get down with anybody," said David Ortiz, the Red Sox' designated hitter. This season, "I saw them so many times whipping our [tails], I said, 'Something's going down here.' It was on. I said: 'Look out. We better fight to get to the playoffs.' "

Ninety-five wins this year were not enough for the Red Sox to repeat as division champions; the Rays won 97, including four crucial wins in six head-to-head games against the Red Sox down the stretch. In all, the Rays won 10 of 18 meetings with Boston, including eight of nine at Tropicana Field -- which is no longer a silent, empty mausoleum on game nights, but a thunderous, rollicking building full of 35,000-plus cowbell-ringing fans.

It is difficult to square the notion of the Rays being one step from the World Series, and Tropicana Field giving them a decided home-field advantage, with the franchise's awful history -- much of which is tied to the fact that it plays in baseball's most powerful, most expensive division, which has produced six of the past 12 World Series champions, and where this year the New York Yankees ($209 million) and the Red Sox ($133 million) had Opening Day payrolls that were roughly five times and three times, respectively, that of the Rays ($43 million).

"Even when we were getting our butts kicked regularly," Rays Manager Joe Maddon said, "[the AL East] was a wonderful place for us to learn how to play, under those intense moments in front of that crowd against world champs, between Fenway and Yankee Stadium."

Many of the lowest moments in Tampa Bay's history have come against the Red Sox, whose sizable Florida fan base -- much of which is centered around Fort Myers, where the Red Sox hold spring training -- often turned games here into Red Sox home games.

There was the time, in 2002, the Devil Rays went 0-10 at home against Boston, and 3-16 overall. There was the game in 2000 when two brawls resulted in eight Tampa Bay players (but none from the Red Sox) being ejected -- and to top it off, Boston's Pedro Martínez took a no-hitter into the ninth inning. There was the 22-4 loss in 2002, the 15-2 loss in 2005, the 15-4 loss just last year.

"You were trying to sweep them -- always," said Eric Hinske, a Tampa Bay utility man who spent the previous six years with AL East rivals Toronto and Boston. "Whenever you played against the Rays . . . you're definitely getting two out of three, but you were mainly trying to sweep."

But even as the Rays were losing 95, 101 and 96 games from 2005 to 2007, their farm system and collection of young talent were the envy of baseball. And even while the Red Sox were pummeling the Rays in those years, something was changing.

"For the past few years, they were becoming very athletic," Red Sox Manager Terry Francona said, "but at times we could get into their bullpen and maybe win some games where they were leading. That stopped this year. . . . Maybe they got better quicker than anyone anticipated. They got better; they stayed better."

The snot-nosed kid the Red Sox used to stomp on and taunt is now all grown up, has taken karate lessons, and starting Friday night, will be looking for a decade's worth of revenge.