The Philadelphia Phillies won the best-of-seven World Series against the American League’s Tampa Bay Rays, four games to one. The Phillies prevailed in the first suspended game in World Series history, with terrible rain and wind, Game 5 had been stopped in the middle of the sixth inning, Monday night, with the Phillies and Tampa Bay Rays tied at 2-all. When play resumed , Philadelphia got a go-ahead run in their half of the sixth inning. But the Rays came right back to tie it at 3-all, on a solo home run by Rocco Baldelli in the top of the seventh.

For the Tampa Bay Rays, even though they lost the World Series, this season was a huge achievement. The franchise has only been in existence since 1998 and, until this season, the Rays had never even had a winning year, finishing last in their division nine of the 10 previous seasons before this one, when they beat the  Boston Red Sox for first place. For the Phillies it was only their second baseball championship in more than a hundred years of existence. Their only other World Series title came in 1980.

Going from worst to first, the Tampa Bay Rays completed a shocking run to their first pennant, holding off the defending champion Boston Red Sox 3-1 Sunday night behind Matt Garza’s incredible pitching in Game 7 of the AL Championship Series.”It’s unbelievable,” center fielder B.J. Upton said. “We battled a lot of adversity this year. We stuck together as a team.”And, they showed a bit of Boston-like resolve when they needed it.The Rays nearly let the series slip away when they blew a seven-run lead late in Game 5 and lost meekly Saturday night. The Rays were a 200-1 shot to win the World Series before the season started. Now, they’ll host the Philadelphia Phillies in Game 1 Wednesday night.

They were the worst in the majors last year, but now the Tampa Bay Rays will play for a spot in the World Series.

“It means everything. We’ve been at the bottom of the barrel for so long,” B.J. Upton said Monday after homering twice in a 6-2 win over Chicago that clinched their AL playoff. “I think there was a point in time where people didn’t even know who we were.”

Andy Sonnanstine pitched 5 2/3 solid innings and manager Joe Maddon’s surprising Rays won 3-1 in the best-of-five series — their first trip to the posts eason. Next up, they’ll host the Boston Red Sox in Game 1 of the AL championship series Friday night.

The Tampa Bay Rays, which never won more than 70 games during its 10 previous seasons, went from 96 losses last year to 97 wins and passed the big-spending Red Sox and New York Yankees in the AL East.

Check out this video of Boston Red Sox Coco Crisp charging the mound in the second inning tonight after he was beaned by Tampa Bay’s James Shields.

This series was already pretty tense already. Yesterday Boston snatched first place in the AL East away from the Rays and Rays manager Joe Maddon accused Coco of “intentionally” trying to injure second baseman Akinori Iwamura during a steal attempt.

I’m disappointed neither guy connected, although both showed excellent dodging skillz.