Published: October 10, 2008 10:16 am         

From comic to sage, Rays ready to eat

When Joe Maddon first came onto the scene in November 2005, after spending three decades scouting, coaching and managing in the minor leagues, the unconventional manager of the team then known as the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, reminded me of Drew Carey — pudgy-faced with red hair, an off-the-wall number on his jersey for a big-league manager, 70, and, of course, what is now his trademark horn-rimmed glasses.

Three years later, at the helm of a young, talented athletic team that was built through its farm system and has put together the second-best regular-season record in baseball in 2008, Maddon has taken on more of a sage air. Winning will do that for you, and Maddon’s appearance now strikes less the pudgy comic Carey, but more the dignified yet crusty newspaper publisher Matt Drayton, the Spencer Tracy character in “Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner.” Even though Tracy was in his dying months when he made the 1967 film, his character of Drayton was a sturdy, honest and decent man, whose wisdom showed through the many lines in his face and his learned eyes.

The face of Maddon is now leaner, the red hair is now white, and the stare behind the still-present horn-rimmed glasses in the middle of a game is reminiscent of the close-up of Tracy in “Guess Who” when a bolt of logic strikes Drayton, prompting him to stare into the camera and say, “I’ll be a son of a (rhymes with witch).”

Well, we’ll all be SOBs, because guess who’s not only coming to dinner, but who no longer sits at the kids’ table? The Tampa Bay Rays, having been exorcised of the Devil, are baseball’s sexiest team these days, even though they play their home games in a dome that has the visual appeal of Iggy Pop and Kelly Osbourne standing at the altar.

The Rays, having put up 97 wins to win the American League East, dispensed of the Chicago White Sox in the Divisional playoffs and are poised to open what we can only hope is a seven-game League Championship Series with the defending world champion Boston Red Sox. And, yes, the series will open in ugly-as-hell, depressing but deafening Tropicana Field, where, until recently, the Rays couldn’t draw ants to an all-day picnic, but have put together the best home record (57-24) since the 1998 New York Yankees. And before crowds of at least 30,000? How about 21-2?

There will, of course, be more than 30,000 fans in Tropicana Field tonight, because not only have the fans in the Tampa-St. Pete area latched on to the bandwagon, but the opponent in this ALCS is the Red Sox, which means Red Sox Nation South will be present and loudly accounted for.

Even with the Easter Bunny Cubs, managed by Lou Piniella (the man Maddon succeeded in Tampa, by the way), having pulled another North Side gag job, and the 100-win Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, USA, Northern Hemisphere revisiting their Gene Mauch days to squeeze suicide out a potentially big inning in hand-delivering Boston to the ALCS, what’s left of this postseason still looks to be plenty to keep us intrigued until November.

In the NLCS there’s the Phillies, who likely put a more imposing lineup on the field than even the Cubs, facing Joe Torre’s white-hot Dodgers. Outside of the Hank Steinbrenner home, who doesn’t want to see Torre, in his 13th consecutive season of managing in the postseason (right, Hank, just a coincidence), run the table in his first year after receiving the Bronx cheer from the cartoonish Little Stein? Who, outside of Philly, wants to see the Phillies in the World Series? Precisely, which is what makes the Phils such a dangerous team, particularly hitting in their bandbox retro ballpark.

Pitching dominates short series, and not only did the Dodgers enter the NLCS with the hottest pitching, they’ve also got Manny being Manny, and who wouldn’t want to see the eccentric (OK, loon-bird) Ramirez make a noisy and colorful return to Fenway after punching his own ticket out of Boston in July?

The Red Sox, of course, cannot be overlooked. They might not be the singularly hottest team of the four left and they no longer have Manny, but they’re on a postseason roll, using ways to win series that always worked against them over the 86 years before the Curse of the Bambino was broken. Do not be lulled by the no-glitz Sox. They have the swagger, the smarts, the experience and the muscle memory of winning.

And then there are the Rays, who play a baseball game as though it’s a track meet, but who also have the power, the pitching and the defense to be the best team in baseball.

Baseball’s final four has a little bit of everything, and is likely to give us even more. And in the middle of it all is a peculiar looking man, who has led an even more peculiar team, whose best finish in 11 seasons of existence was last place, to within four wins of playing in the World Series.

I’ll be a son of a ...

Mike Burke is sports editor of the Cumberland Times-News. Contact Mike Burke at mburke@times-news.com.