A Great Day for Tampa Bay!

Bucs win!

Rays win!

Does it get any better for a sports fan from Tampa?

I think not.

If you're like me and you grew up in the City by the Bay, you're used to crummy sports teams. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers, our NFL football franchise, had been terrible since it's inception in 1976. Yes, there was a brief bright spot in the late 70's (I was like 5 or 6 years old then) but after that, the 80's and 90's were slap full of awfulness. Covered in creamsicle orange.
Then came the 2000's...and a much needed uniform change. Bye bye Orange and white, hello red and pewter!
They loaded up on top draft pics and went after Raiders coach Jon Gruden and lo and behold...the won the Super Bowl. 2002 was a magical year for my home team.

And then all those great players went onto somewhere else and Gruden was fired after sub-par seasons and now here we sit in 2010 with a very young, very inexperienced team and coaching staff.

But somehow, they are winning. And for that I am thankful.

The Tampa Bay Rays are an even newer franchise...introduced into Major League Baseball's American League in 1998.
And they sucked too and had awful uniforms in the beginning. But slowly, they started moving up...drafting talented ball players to wear those hideous uniforms. The logo and unis were changed in 2007...and they went to the World Series in 2008.
I'd say it was a change for the better!

They are in the playoffs again and were down 2 games to none, losing both games at home.
They flew out to Texas and beat the Rangers in their own park. 2 games in a row.
Awesome!!!

So tomorrow is the final game and if they win, they advance to play the Yankees.
How I loathe them.

But it was nice to see a city known for sports failures celebrate 2 hard fought victories yesterday.
Congratulations Tampa! You deserve it!