Rays the Roof!

By Buddy Martin

As a former St. Petersburg resident and a sports columnist for the St. Petersburg Times who campaigned for major league baseball there back in the day — some 45 years ago — I have a confession and a hurrah. The confession: somewhere between covering the Gators and falling back in love with baseball, I became a Rays fan who watches 50, 60 games a year on TV whenever Florida isn't on. The hurrah: Friday night in Milwaukee, my Rays open the World Series — the third trip in franchise history, after 2008 and 2020 — against the Milwaukee Brewers. I have some "Rays the Roof" skin in this game.

And I'll confess to one more thing: I've about had it with the big-market dudes who have spent this week telling anyone who'll listen that this is "a terrible World Series."

Terrible for whom? Terrible for the teams that spent the money and stayed home, maybe.

Here's the number that ought to embarrass the chorus: the Brewers and Rays, combined, are playing this World Series on a payroll of $241,821,789. Seven — count 'em, seven — major league clubs spent more than that all by themselves this season (figures via Spotrac). The Mets' payroll alone is bigger than these two teams put together. The Dodgers' luxury-tax penalty was bigger than any one of the other three League Championship Series clubs' entire payrolls.

Neither of these teams even cracks the top half of the payroll standings — Milwaukee ranks 19th, Tampa Bay 28th. The Rays got here on $95 million and change, which in New York barely covers the bullpen and the postgame spread.

And what did all that big-market money buy? The defending champion Dodgers got swept out of the NLCS in four straight by these same thrift-store Brewers. The Mets, owners of baseball's highest payroll, were a last-place club by August. So when the dudes on the big-market networks call this a "terrible World Series," understand what they're really saying: terrible ratings in New York and Los Angeles. The rest of us call it small-market standard-bearers, playing for the first World Series championship in either franchise's history — the first Fall Classic since 1980 where both teams are chasing their first title.

They've given a whole new meaning to the phrase "small ball."

It was quite a moment Monday night at Tropicana Field. Freddy Peralta, of all people, grinding through 5⅓ innings of one-run ball. Junior Caminero — 42 homers in the regular season, nothing to show for the playoffs until the seventh inning of Game 6 — launching a two-run shot off the left-field foul pole and taking that home-run strut around the bases, all 38.7 seconds of it. Then Yandy Díaz, who had all but guaranteed a Game 6 victory the day before, icing it with a two-run blast in the eighth. Rays 7, Guardians 3. Third pennant in 29 seasons. The Amazin' Rays are back.

And the irony of the night: Yandy, acquired from Cleveland in that three-team swap back in 2018, delivered the knockout blow against his former club — and now Freddy Peralta gets his own reunion with Milwaukee.

Oh, what a story that one is!

The Brewers traded Peralta to the Mets in January, the Mets gave up on him by the deadline, and the Rays bought low on Aug. 2. All he did after that was win the American League Championship Series MVP — and now he's headed back to the ballpark he called home for eight seasons, possibly to start Game 2, with a chance to haunt the team that traded him.

"Milwaukee is going to be always in my heart," Peralta says. "But it's time to compete." Baseball, you gorgeous, cruel sport.

In Kevin Cash, the Rays have the best and most resourceful manager in baseball, and in Kyle Snyder the best pitching coach. It is a fun team to watch — it has been all year — and now it is four wins from the first championship in franchise history.

One housekeeping gripe, filed on behalf of the customers in Cleveland: while everybody waited and waited and waited last week for somebody at MLB to say a word about the rainout, the parking lots and concession stands kept right on running the meter.

You could have played baseball in the Trop — that's the whole point of a roof. Thankfully, this Series guarantees indoor games in St. Pete —and Milwaukee, which plays under a lid, too, so we will be watching baseball's first all-indoor World Series. Either way, nobody in either city will be checking the radar.

The last time the Brewers made the Series, 1982, I was there in St. Louis — and they called themselves "Harvey's Wallbangers," after manager Harvey Kuenn, who took over the club that June, and the Harvey Wallbanger cocktail. The nickname was well earned: that team hit 216 home runs.

The Brewers came to Busch Stadium leading that Series three games to two, one win from the whole thing. I was in the press box for Game 5 with Woody Paige — we were both of the Denver Post — and what we watched was the Cardinals refusing to die despite a loss to Milwaukee.

Now, here's the story I really want to tell you about that night. The phone rang at our hotel. It was Rick Reilly — a cub reporter for us back then who happened to be down in nearby Louisville, where he'd been working on a Dan Issel feature — asking if there was any way we could get him into the World Series. I guess so! Who gets a ticket to the World Series at the last minute?

Woody and I had just checked the St. Louis hotel's room-service menu for an afternoon snack and discovered we could get "mixed nuts" for $32. Keep in mind, this is 1982 — $32!

So we kidded each other: Well, shall we get the mixed nuts, or shall we give Rick a chance to come down and write the game story while we concentrate on writing our columns?

We chose Rick. He wrote his first major-league game story that night. And when we walked out of Busch Stadium at 1 a.m., he was soaring about three feet off the ground, still pumped about his assignment.

"I hope you didn't write that the Brewers 'decked the Cards,'" I told him — the Cardinals had just been beaten them 6-4.

This was the day before cell phones, remember. Rick stopped dead in his tracks and said, sheepishly, "I gotta call the newspaper office. Where's the pay phone?"

Reilly was on his way to stardom like a rocket to the moon. Next stop the Los Angeles Times, then Sports Illustrated, where he'd become the most famous and best-paid sportswriter in America. ($1M a year) and on that night in St. Louis, all the future star wanted was to find a dime, or a quarter, or whatever it cost to feed a pay phone.

So no, I'm not tired of this World Series. I'm tired of hearing about the ones that didn't happen because some $300 million team mailed it in. What we've got instead is two clubs that built their rosters the old way — scouting, development, nerve — playing for a trophy neither franchise has ever held. One of them is going to win it. That's not a terrible World Series. That's baseball working exactly the way it's supposed to.

Forty-five years ago we dreamed out loud about October baseball in St. Petersburg. Friday night, the dream plays Game 1. Rays the Roof, indeed.