Dick Vitale has owned Tampa Bay Rays season tickets since the franchise's inception and wants it known that he didn't jump on the bandwagon for this magical year.
"I've been a die-hard Rays fan for 11 years now," Vitale, the Hall of Fame ESPN college hoops analyst who grew up in North Jersey and now lives in Sarasota, Fla., said by phone Monday morning. "I've had season tickets. I love baseball. I'm passionate about the game.
"I'm proud to say I'm not just jumping on the bandwagon now. I couldn't give away my tickets in the first 10 years and now my phone rings off the hook with people who want tickets."
Like all Rays fans, Vitale knows that his team could lose the World Series tonight when Phillies ace Cole Hamels, who has won all four of his postseason starts, takes the ball for Game 5 at Citizens Bank Park. After Sunday night's 10-2 rout, the Phillies lead the series 3-1.
"I have in my pocket tickets for Games 6 and 7 [in St. Petersburg], I hope I don't have to rip them up and throw them away," Vitale, who threw out the ceremonial first pitch before Game 2 of the ALCS, said with a laugh.
Growing up in Elmwood Park, N.J., Vitale actually rooted for the Red Sox first before becoming a big Yankee fan like his cousins.
"I was initially a Red Sox fan back in the 1940s and '50s when they had Ted Williams and Dom DiMaggio and Mel Parnell and Johnny Peske, but then I got so tired of watching them lose to the Yankees," he said. "I became a Yankee fan, and I became a fanatic.
"I'm not proud to say, but me and my buddies would cut school and we'd go over to Yankee Stadium and hang outside where the players would come in. We would watch Casey Stengel get out of his cab. I wasn't a big autograph guy, but I just had so much admiration for all their success.
"I remember one time my buddy and I snuck into Yankee Stadium on an off day and we were running around the bases, hanging in the dugout, hanging out by the clubhouse. And we just had so much fun. So much fun."
And so it was especially exciting this season to watch the Rays of Evan Longoria, B.J. Upton and Carlos Pena win the American League East by beating out both the Red Sox and the Yankees.
Vitale compared this year's Rays to the 1983 North Carolina State team coached by his friend, the late Jim Valvano. That team upset Michael Jordan's North Carolina team and Ralph Sampson's Virginia team just to make the NCAA tournament.
"It was phenomenal to watch a team that the Yankees exceed [in payroll] with [Alex] Rodriguez and [Derek] Jeter and watch a bunch of guys play together as a team," Vitale said. "It shows you it's all about a team; it's not about individual stars. It's about playing as a unit, playing as a team, and they certainly have done that and done that well."
Up until this point, anyway.
The Rays' No. 3 and 4 hitters, Pena and Longoria are a combined 0-29 in the series with 15 strikeouts and three walks.
"It's tough to win when you're two guys, hitting three and four, are 0-for-29," Vitale said. "When they're not hitting, how are you going to win? I mean, you just can't win.
"And the situation tonight is [Rays pitcher Scott] Kazmir is going to have to be near-perfect. He's going to have to have his A-plus game. He can't walk people early, can't get in trouble early. The first couple of innings have always been a tough time for him.
"He's gotta be able to survive that and give them a great, great performance because one thing you know, you're not going to score against Hamels."
But if the Rays somehow find a way to win this game, look for a smiling Vitale sitting behind the Rays dugout in Game 6.
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