From the wild ride that was the Tampa Bay Rays to an NFL Draft with local flavor to an area golfer pulling the strings in the upset at the Ryder Cup, 2008 offered a variety of interesting storylines.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers fans said good-bye to longtime defensive coordinator Monte Kiffin, while the high school football playoffs said hello to Braden River.
The Pittsburgh Pirates played their first spring training game under the new lights at McKechnie Field, and the Florida Gators successfully negotiated the BCS to earn a shot at another national title.
Here are a look at the top-10 local stories of 2008:
The Big Ray Machine
The Rays became the biggest story in baseball in decades when they escaped from their losing past and not only turned in their first-ever winning season, but won the American League East and the AL pennant during their wild ride to the World Series.
The Rays were the second team in baseball history to go from worst to first when they went from having the worst record in baseball in 2007 to division champs, overthrowing the defending World Series champion Red Sox and denying the New York Yankees their 14th straight playoff appearance. They advanced to the World Series after outlasting the Red Sox in Game 7 of the American League Championship Series.
Joe Maddon was voted AL manager of the year, and third baseman Evan Longoria was a unanimous choice as AL rookie of the year, marking the first time in the team’s 11-year history that a player or manager won a major postseason award.
The Rays were denied the biggest prize when they lost to the Philadelphia Phillies in five games in the World Series. But it was a remarkable march into October for a team that didn’t have a .300 hitter or a 15-game winner. They didn’t have the best players in the league, but they proved what a small-market, low-payroll (second lowest in baseball) team can do with the right players.
With the 16th pick . . .
Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie and Mike Jenkins made history when they became the first pair of Bradenton residents picked in the first round of the NFL Draft on April 26.
The Arizona Cardinals took Rodgers-Cromartie with the 16th pick. The Cowboys grabbed Jenkins with the 25th pick.
Jenkins, who played cornerback at Southeast High and South Florida, was expected to be a first-round pick from almost the moment he set foot on the USF campus.
Rodgers-Cromartie was the big surprise. Overlooked by just about every college in the country as a senior at Lakewood Ranch, he signed with Division I-AA Tennessee State and quietly developed into one of the best college cornerbacks in the country.
Let there be lights
The only thing that could dampen the fist night game at McKechnie Field was rain, and rain did just that on March 7, cancelling the game between the Pirates and Reds.
So the historic night at the historic ballpark was postponed 12 days until March 19 when the Yankees took the field and a capacity crowd of 5,836 filled the stands for the first night game in 85 years of spring training in Bradenton.
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