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You should watch the most compelling baseball team in some time, the Rays. Very interesting team which plays the game the way it should be played. Real baseball fans can appreciate this as worth watching in itself. Of course, I love the game and watching the kids in the park league play as much as the bigs. Tampa stomped my White Sox and seems about ready to do the same to the Red Sox. What is best is that it is getting done with a team of young guys not making hundreds of millions.

My Twins (7th lowest salary in MLB: $62 million) are also a bunch of young, hungry guys that came within a 1-0 game (your Jim Thome broke our hearts) of the playoffs. The Rays are the second-lowest team: $44 million.

Thome had been breaking OUR hearts most of the year so it was good to see another team get it. You have to admit neither the Sox nor the Twins deserved to go any further though. Both teams had been floundering for a month and were not good at the end. The Sox had been in the lead almost all year but never played good enough to do anything but stumble into the playoffs after the Tigers and Indians collapsed. They never had all cylinders firing for more than a game or three. The Twins consistently get more out of less than any other team and I hate and admire them.

I will have to say though that for once the Sox have a bunch of excellent young players and look forward to next year. When they picked up Thome I thought it would mean a fundamental change in the way they played the game and it did. They started waiting for the homer and they seemed to come in bunches when some didn’t even manner. And they seemed to stop being able to scratch and fight for runs even forgetting how to bunt.

But we have four excellent starters so we will have a chance next year. I have a feeling there will be some major changes elsewhere.