ST. PETERSBURG -- Two moments defined the first successful era of Tampa Bay baseball, two iconic images that will live forever in the hearts and minds of Rays fans. And they’ll likely live forever in physical form, too, having been honored with a pair of statues outside Tropicana Field in 2023.
Akinori Iwamura, Game 7.
Evan Longoria, Game 162.
Those words say it all.
The Rays created some unforgettable moments on the field before their championship run in 2008. Far more came after Longoria’s Bobby Thomson moment in 2011. Here we’ll attempt to rank the franchise’s 10 best on-field moments, starting with the two that unquestionably belong at the top.
1. Worst to first
You’ve seen the highlight, probably memorized it. A young David Price threw the pitch. Iwamura fielded Jed Lowrie’s grounder, stepped on second base and jumped into the air. The Rays beat the Red Sox in Game 7 of the 2008 American League Championship Series, and as late radio broadcaster Dave Wills so memorably put it, “This improbable season has another chapter to it!”
Tampa Bay’s worst-to-first turnaround sent them from the cellar of the AL East to the franchise’s first World Series. It all peaked in that moment, with Iwamura bounding off second base at The Trop.
The Rays lost that World Series to the Phillies in five games, but as Price said in a TV interview after ALCS Game 7, “This is the biggest night in Rays history.”
For all it represented, that’s still true.
2. Game 162
Put simply, this was the climactic moment of one of the most exciting days in recent baseball history -- Sept. 28, 2011 -- and a highlight that will forever live on in franchise lore.
As Boston was on its way to a loss in Baltimore, Longoria helped the Rays chip away at a seven-run gap against the Yankees with a three-run homer in the eighth inning at Tropicana Field. With Tampa Bay down to its last strike in the ninth, Dan Johnson pulled a game-tying pinch-hit homer to right field.
What followed was out of a movie script. The Red Sox lost to the Orioles, giving the Rays new life -- Game 163 with a loss, a return to the postseason with a win. In the 12th inning, Longoria lined a walk-off homer off Scott Proctor just over the wall in left field to cap an 8-7 win and send the Rays -- who at one point trailed in the AL Wild Card standings by nine games -- back to the playoffs.
3. Mr. 3,000
Wade Boggs spent the best years of his Hall of Fame career with the Red Sox and Yankees, but he made Major League history with his hometown Devil Rays on Aug. 7, 1999. A product of Tampa’s Plant High School, still playing at age 41, Boggs swatted a two-run homer off Cleveland pitcher Chris Haney to right field at Tropicana Field for his 3,000th career hit. That made him the first player in MLB history to join the 3,000-hit club with a homer. Boggs took an emotional trip around the bases that ended with him getting down on both knees and kissing home plate.
4. Deep revenge
Manager Kevin Cash has called this “hands down, the greatest moment I’ve been a part of in baseball.”
It’s tough to top.
The stakes were high, with a winner-take-all 2020 ALDS Game 5 tied at 1-1 in the eighth inning. The drama was inescapable, considering the circumstances and the history between the Rays and Yankees, which had boiled over in Cash’s “whole damn stable full of guys that throw 98 mph” comment a month earlier. And the revenge was personal, as that controversy was the result of Aroldis Chapman throwing a 100.5 mph fastball just over Mike Brosseau’s head.
So it seemed fitting that Brosseau stepped to the plate in that moment, worked an epic 10-pitch at-bat, then ripped a game-winning homer off the flamethrowing closer. The Rays won the series, outlasted the Astros in the ALCS and reached their second World Series. None of it would have been possible without Brosseau’s poetic blast.
5. What a finish!
It’s one of the more absurd finishes to a World Series game in recent memory. Light-hitting outfielder Brett Phillips delivered the hit that right fielder Chris Taylor bobbled. Kevin Kiermaier scored the tying run. Randy Arozarena sprinted from first base, stumbled, rolled and slid home as the ball skittered away, and the Rays walked off with an 8-7 win over the Dodgers in Game 4 of the 2020 Fall Classic.
Phillips, a native of Seminole, Fla., who grew up cheering for the Rays, became a fan favorite for his airplane celebration and the soon-to-be catchphrase he delivered in a postgame interview: “Baseball is fun.” Arozarena emphatically slammed home plate several times in celebration, another unforgettable image in the ALCS MVP’s postseason run for the ages.
6. The first no-hitter
For a time, the Rays were frequently on the wrong end of no-hitter history. There were perfect games by Mark Buehrle (2009) and Dallas Braden (2010). There was a 149-pitch no-no by Edwin Jackson in 2010. Then, finally, on July 26, 2010, Matt Garza got one for the Rays. The right-hander no-hit the Tigers at Tropicana Field, the franchise’s first (and, so far, only) no-hitter. Garza walked one batter, struck out six and faced the minimum in the 5-0 victory, which was keyed by a Matt Joyce grand slam.
7. Speed thrills
Carl Crawford was Tampa Bay’s first homegrown star, and he was responsible for many of the club’s finest moments when there weren’t many to go around. On May 3, 2009, he etched his name into Major League history by tying the Modern Era record with six steals in one game. Crawford had another massive moment worth mentioning in the 2009 All-Star Game, as he robbed a home run and earned MVP honors on the national stage.
8. A folk hero is born
Even before Johnson hit his dramatic homer in Game 162 in 2011, what he did on Sept. 9, 2008, was enough to solidify him as a franchise folk hero.
The Rays called him up from Triple-A for a huge series at Fenway Park, but his flight arrived too late for him to start. He got there in time to pinch-hit against Boston closer Jonathan Papelbon with Tampa Bay down a run in the ninth inning, though. He launched a 3-2 pitch for a game-tying homer, and the Rays pulled ahead to claim a crucial game that helped them win their first AL East title.
9. Yandy silences the Coliseum
The Rays went five years (2014-18) without a trip to the postseason before making their triumphant return in 2019. Their first game back? A win-or-go-home Wild Card matchup with the A’s.
Yandy Díaz delivered an all-time line about the rowdy, sold-out Coliseum crowd before the game -- "Really? There was people with guns when I played in Cuba.” -- then silenced those fans with a homer in his first at-bat. He homered again his next time up, leading the Rays to a 5-1 win and into the AL Division Series.
10. Lucky No. 13
The 2023 season began as well as any year in more than a century. With 13 straight victories, the Rays matched the 1982 Braves and ’87 Brewers for the longest season-opening winning streak in MLB’s Modern Era. That remarkable run is also the longest overall winning streak in franchise history. It put the Rays well on their way to a 99-win campaign and their fifth straight playoff appearance, although it ended with another early exit in the postseason.
Honorable mention
• Game 163 in 2013: Price (complete game) and Longoria (3-for-4, HR, two RBIs) stepped up to send the Rays to the postseason. Watch >>
• Ice Cream Time: Jose Lobaton kept the Rays’ season alive with a walk-off homer off Koji Uehara in Game 3 of the 2013 ALDS. Watch >>
• The Opener: On May 19, 2018, the Rays started reliever Sergio Romo against the Angels, pioneering the concept of the opener and changing modern pitching usage. Watch >>
• The Relay: Kevin Kiermaier to Willy Adames to Travis d’Arnaud, a perfectly executed play to cut down Jose Altuve at the plate in Game 4 of the 2019 ALDS. Watch >>