Sweet... Akinori Iwamura?

With the Red Sox finished and the Rays -- the Rays!! -- in the World Series instead, it's going to be hard for us in New England to put aside the disappointment to tip our caps to an awfully impressive team that could have completely collapsed after the Game Five Fold-Up.

Well, here's a tip of the cap to the Rays -- and how far they've come as a franchise -- to a tune we all know well:

There it began
Abreu for Kevin Stocker
Chicken Wing Wade just hanging on

Lost in the spring
Lost even more in the summer
Who'd have believed Esteban Yan

Hands
Lousy hands
Reaching out
An E-3
An E-2...

Sweet Caroline (bum bum bum)
Tampa never seemed so good (So good! So good! So good!)
I'd been inclined (bum bum bum)
To believe they never would, but now they're

Swinging with might
And it's not Crawford only
Evan can hit the long ball, too

Upton was hurt
Swung his arm out of his shoulder
How can it hurt when he hits like Ruth?

Warm, getting warm
Don't get outs
Winning three
Then four, too...

Sweet Caroline (bum bum bum)
Tampa never seemed so good (So good! So good! So good!)
I'd been inclined (bum bum bum)
To believe they never would

Sweet Caroline (bum bum bum)
Tampa never seemed so good (So good! So good! So good!)
I'd been inclined (bum bum bum)
To believe they never would... but now they're

(In the World Series.)