Finally, a breath of fresh air.  How many times hae you oveheard someone say “wahhh its always the Red Sox or the Yankees, too predictable” when talking about baseball?  Well, that theory can eat shit.  The Rays are arguably the best story baseball has had in decades, making a ridiculous season long run culminating with their first World Series berth ever.  Meanwhile in the NL the Phillies are back in the World Series for the first time since, well, since this happened.  The Rays weren’t even a twinkle in MLB’s eye when Mitch Williams gave that bomb up in 1993 to Joe Carter.

As far as how the series will shake out, all attention has to be on the Rays.  “They won’t win 70 games.  Okay they won’t win the division.  Okay they won’t beat the White Sox.  Okay they won’t overcome the Red Sox.”  Don’t give me anything about this team not having the stones to beat the Phillies on the worlds’ biggest stage.  Evan Longoria and BJ Upton have gone beast-mode during the playoffs, carrying the Rays offense with moon shots.  Their pitching has been unbelievable with Big Game James Shields, Scott Kazmir, and ALCS MVP Matt Garza pitching lights out. And let’s not even dive into how epic David Price’s outing was in game 7.  At 23, he’s going to be some kind of filthy in the coming years.

Meanwhile, the Phillies are the team that’s had as little hype as any National League team in this post season.  While ESPN was busy jerking it to the Cubs 97 win season, CC Sabathia starting every third day for a month, and Manny Ramirez owning Los Angeles, the Phillies went to work and handled both the Brewers and Dodgers with relative ease.  Ryan Howard hasn’t started hitting yet, which is a bit frightening.  Pat the Bat Burrell has played well and Chase Utley is back on track.  As far as arms go, Cole Hamels looks downright unhittable.  Brad Lidge has yet to blow a save this season, which is pretty impressive considering his history of blowing saves in big games.

For a prediction, I have to go with the Rays.  I have a few reasons for it, starting with Steve Phillips picking the Phillies to win it all.  The Rays seem like the most rounded team in baseball; a bunch of power, a bunch of speed, and incredible arms.  Guys like Longoria, Upton, and Crawford have been huge throughout the playoffs and it’ll continue in this series.  The Phillies downfall will be their fall off in their rotation after Hamels.  If the Phillies want to win this series, they’ll need a big win from Cole Hamels tonight.  I still think, regardless of Hamels winning, the Phillies will be overmatched in the long run.  This series will be epic, so screw the talk about the ratings sucking, you don’t work for Fox and neither do I.