An Unlikely Hero at the Unlikeliest of Times

Photo: Jason Sudeikis as Ted Lasso at the White House in March 2023. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. Official White House Photo by Cameron Smith.

“Good! Now let’s see how they’ll play now that they’re loose again!” — pseudo Ted Lasso

It’s Florida-Georgia Week, so we hardly have the bandwidth for this – but the Tampa Bay Rays have made it impossible to ignore.

What might Gator coach Jon Sumrall say in his best Ted Lasso impersonation?

“Good! Now let’s see how they’ll play now that they’re loose again!” — pseudo Ted Lasso,

The champagne was on ice in the visitors’ clubhouse. The plastic sheeting was probably already taped over the lockers.

Thousands of Brewers fans who had made the trip south to Tropicana Field were on their feet, cheering a routine grounder to third like it was the final out of the season. It wasn’t.

What happened next at The Trop is going to get talked about in St. Pete barrooms for the next 30 years. Maybe longer if the Rays pull off the impossible.

The only thing that could top it around here is if the Gators upset Georgia Saturday as an 11.5-point underdog!

Finally the Rays showed up in a memorable Game 4. Junior Caminero reached on a rare Joey Ortiz throwing error. Liam Hicks singled. Jonny DeLuca singled home the tying run. Chandler Simpson singled. And then a utility infielder named Ben Williamson, 1-for-15 this postseason and a guy who had fouled a ball off his own face the day before, was sent up to pinch-hit with the bases loaded.

On the 367th pitch of a 4-hour, 20-minute marathon, Williamson chopped a 96-mph sinker into the dirt. The ball kicked up chalk seven feet from home plate, bounded high over the first baseman and died on the grass in short right field.

Nick Fortes, running for Hicks, sprinted home. Rays 4, Brewers 3. The clock read 12:28 a.m.

Not exactly a Kirk Gibson moonshot. Nobody cares. They don’t ask how. As in golf, they ask how many.

I spent a big chunk of my career in a St. Petersburg press box and again as columnist in Charlotte County, Florida arguing that this market deserved major league baseball. Nights like this are why. Nights like this are why you put up with the attendance gripes and the stadium fights that never seem to end.

A little perspective: Tampa Bay became only the fourth team in World Series history to dodge elimination with an extra-inning comeback. The other three, the 1912 Red Sox, the 1986 Mets and the 2011 Cardinals, all went on to win it all.

It was also the first walkoff by a team facing World Series elimination since David Freese did it in Game 6 in 2011.

Nobody in the Rays clubhouse needed a history lesson, though. They needed a pulse.

They found one in the bottom of the 12th, with the Brewers three outs from the first championship in franchise history.

The Rays still need three more wins. The math is ugly. But for the first time in four nights, the pressure belongs to somebody else.

Which is where a certain Florida football coach also comes in as what is sometimes known as the land of big dreams and broken hearts.

The Tampa Bay Rays are just the FOURTH team in World Series history to come back in extra innings to avoid elimination. The previous three ALL went on to win the World Series:

1912 Red Sox - World Series Champions

1986 Mets - World Series Champions

2011 Cardinals - World Series Champions

2026 Rays - TBD!