Amazing Rays prove doubters wrong

I'll admit it.I thought they were dead.I thought there was no way the Tampa Bay Rays would survive their Game 5 disaster at Boston's Fenway Park, where they were seven outs from their first World Series with a 7-0 lead, only to allow the Red Sox to rally for an historic, come-from-behind victory that should've haunted these playoff newcomers forever.Or at least until pitchers and catchers report next spring.I thought the Rays -- so young and wonderfully athletic, but so unfamiliar with October baseball -- had pitched away their chance to play on the game's grandest stage, especially after coming so tantalizingly close.But I was wrong.I was as wrong about these remarkable and resilient Rays after last Thursday night's crushing, 8-7 loss in the American League Championship Series as most of us have been all summer long.Let's be honest: Nobody thought they could do any of this.Not in April.Not in July.Not even in September.Sure, the Rays had the makings of a team on the rise as they broke camp, maybe good enough to finish with a winning record for the first time in their 11 seasons. But nobody thought they could get to the playoffs in 2008, let alone finish atop the AL East, a division that had belonged to the big-spending New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox for 15 years.So we kept waiting for them to fade, to wilt under the pressure of a pennant race, to realize who they were and what they were doing.We're still waiting.The World Series starts Wednesday and the Rays, who refuse to go away, are still finding ways to win -- and at a time on the baseball calendar when few folks outside Florida believed they could.The Rays ran through the Chicago White Sox in four games in the AL Division Series, then won three of the first four games against the Red Sox in the best-of-seven ALCS. And they appeared to have delivered the knock out punch in Game 5, homering their way to what everyone thought was an insurmountable, late-inning lead.But the Red Sox are the reigning World Series champions, and there's something special about champions that makes them the champions they are.They don't quit.They might get knocked down, but they don't stay down. They lift themselves off the canvas and get back into the fight. They keep punching, even if all they have left to throw at their opponents are their hearts.The Red Sox did exactly that.They pummeled the Rays' bullpen for eight unanswered runs across the final three innings to win a game that was lost. They kept alive their hopes of getting back to the World Series. They changed the tone of the ALCS.It was nearly enough.The Red Sox rocked the stunned and reeling Rays in Game 6 and pushed this dramatic and unpredictable series to the final round. And, frankly, it seemed inevitable that the champs would finish the job in Game 7.But the Rays weren't done.Turns out, the challengers, too, had some heart. And grit. And whatever other intangibles are needed to become champions.And they did it again.They surprised us.They showed us their mettle, proved that they're for real, demanded that we finally give them the respect they deserve.They won a Game 7.And the best sports story of the summer -- one of the great worst-to-first stories ever written -- gets another chapter as the Rays move on to play against the Philadelphia Phillies in the World Series.The fact that these Rays were 200-to-1 long shots to win the World Series when the season started? Meaningless now.Just as meaningless as Thursday night's Game 5 collapse against the Red Sox.So I admit it.I was wrong.The Rays weren't dead.They aren't done.And I won't be the least bit surprised if they take the title.(Ray McNulty is sports columnist for Scripps Treasure Coast (Fla.) Newspapers, The Stuart News, Fort Pierce Tribune and Vero Beach Press Journal. Contact him at ray.mcnulty@scripps.com.)