Cinderella May Have Lost Her Slipper, But the Rays Are Still Winners in October

At a time when a nation is celebrating the crowning of a champion after the longest sixth inning in the history of the game, another team comes out the true winner.

After a season of hearing, "Worst to first," the Tampa Bay Rays can hold their heads up high on the plane trip back to Tampa, where they should be met with open arms and a standing ovation from a city who has turned from a one horse town into a city of hope.

Congratulations to the Phillies on their World Series victory, but the real winner this October is the Rays.

Many expected, with Griffey Jr. joining the White Sox, that when they made it into the playoffs as a wild card, the Rays had no shot to slow down their momentum...wrong. Rays took care of the Chi-Sox with ease and silenced those critics.

Next they faced the other pair of Sox from Major League Baseball, the defending champion Boston Red Sox. In an ALCS with many high and low points, the Rays were able to silence the critics while coming up big in a tough spot with a rallying Red Sox team, who, over the past few elimination games before this series, were very impressive, to say the least.

The Rays were the team that beat the New York Yankees out of the playoffs for the first time in over a decade. The Rays were a team that limited the defending champion Red Sox to a wild-card berth into the playoffs. The Rays were the team that nobody saw coming and everyone doubted until they actually made the series.

As the Rays' players sat on the frozen benches or leaned against the icy cold fences of the dugout, wrapped up tight in their parkas, trying to take off the cold that they are not used to at this time in Tampa, you could see the look of disappointment and defeat in their eyes.

The Rays are not losers. They are winners! They proved you do not have to sink $200 million into one player to win. They proved that if you get a manager, pitching staff, and hitting lineup that believe in each other and plays the game correctly and efficiently, then you can win.

In about two weeks, those extra shirts they printed up saying "Tampa Bay Rays: World Series champions 2008" will be distributed to a third-world country. The idea of champion is quite often misused.

Some think that you have to be in first place or have won it all to be a champion, when according to Dictionary.com, there is also another use for the word champion. Dictionary.com states, in definition No. 4, that a champion is, "A person who fights for or defends any person or cause."

The Rays are champions for fighting for the cause of baseball and teaching the youth of America that teamwork is still worth striving for, and that you do not have to have a giant payroll to win, as long as you work together.