Okay, all you people who are sick and tired of all the same teams getting into the playoffs every year; all you Red Sox and Yankees haters, who wait with bated breath for someone else to win the American League East - It's been a while, hasn't it? You have to go back eleven years to find a season in which one or the other of those two teams didn't win the division.

Welcome to the New World Order, MLB-Style. It's July 21, and the Tampa Bay Rays are leading the AL East, with the third-best record in the big leagues. I know it's going to be tough finding something else to whine about than "The rich always get richer," but guess what? The team that has finished in last place for nine of the ten seasons they've been in existence; the team that has never won more than seventy games in a season - that would be the Rays - they are for real.

The Rays are winning with pitching and defense and exciting young talent, and they're not going away. The only question mark, really, besides depth, is whether their pitching, so much of which is very young, can take the pressure of a September pennant race.

And, really, whether Tampa Bay makes the playoffs in the tough AL East isn't even the point. They could go 14-51 the rest of the way, and it would still qualify as the best season in franchise history. Of course, they're not going to do that, but even if they play .500 baseball from now until the end of the year, the Rays would finish with around 90 wins.

Worst to first? Who knows, but as a baseball fan, it's fun to see what's going on down in Tampa. And I'm a Red Sox fan.

__________

If you love fiction and have a few spare minutes, check out my website, www.allanleverone.com.