With the dawn of this New Year and now a new president, everyone’s favorite pastime becomes best of, or in the case of 2008, worst of lists. Whether it is best game, or best movie, or even most popular catchphrase, most people need to list things. And since they also love an underdog and even Obama counts as an underdog, there is a need to rank the best of those as well. So with Super Bowl week upon us here in Tampa, the popular question to ask is which team is the better story this year, because there has to be a better story. The Super Bowl bound Arizona Cardinals, who had never made it moving from city to city over the past 40 years, or the Tampa Bay Rays, a team that lived in last place for its 10 year existence, only to rise up and make it to the World Series this past baseball season.
On the surface this seems like a good enough poll question to give talk show hosts and fans alike, something to talk about besides Anquan Boldin for the next couple of weeks, but with a little closer look this really isn’t even close. Let’s take the Cardinals and their magical run to the main event. First of all, while the franchise has been putrid for the past 8 plus decades, that doesn’t matter to this team.
They not only have a former league and Super Bowl MVP in quarterback Kurt Warner, but also possible Hall of Famer Edgerrin James at running back. Granted, he didn’t start playing worth anything until a couple of weeks ago, that doesn’t change the fact that he is on the team and running well now. And who does Warner have to throw to, but Boldin on one side, and first round pick and possibly the best receiver in Football on the other side, Larry Fitzgerald. For an offensive start, that is pretty good, and that of course was their strong side throughout the season. Don’t toss out the fact that they play in the NFC West, where the Niners where the next best team record wise at 7-9, and the Rams and Seahawks won a combined 6 games.
Now take the Rays and their roster. One would be hard pressed to run down their line-up top to bottom, or even give 3 or 4 names from the team if they didn’t live in St. Pete. And while that may be difficult now, there is no way anyone could before the season started. Add to that a much longer season and greater variance with streaks and injuries, not to mention the division that they had to play in. See the Rays play in the American League East, which could be considered the most difficult division in baseball. Most experts either picked the Red Sox, the Yankees or even the Blue Jays to win that division. Nobody anywhere picked the Rays. Picking the Cards to win the West was not a very big stretch. Super Bowl maybe, but at least they had a shot out of the gate.
Unfortunately people only remember what is happening right now, which is why they can’t sit through a movie that lasts over 2 hours. This is not discounting the amazing run of the Arizona Cardinals; just simply pointing out that the Rays run was even more unbelievable. Funny thing is, if Arizona loses, in two years people may not even remember that they got there. Ask the Rays in a year.