Rays' Game 7 win is a perfect finish

Carl Crawford practically flew in from left field. The Tampa Bay Rays' left fielder had waited a long, long time for this. He had been through most of seven long, painful seasons thinking that this very moment might never arrive. He had put up with more losing in more ways than anyone should ever be asked to endure.

So when the groundball scooted to second base, and the crowd at Tropicana Field roared, and his teammates were sucked inexorably into the middle of the diamond for an emotional, no-holds-barred party, Crawford topped it off with a flying leap onto a dogpile of Rays in a celebration of the team's first trip to the World Series. And what a way to top it off.

"I'm always the last one," Crawford said in the middle of the field, the crowd still roaring, the champagne just being uncorked. "So I was running as hard as I could, and I just took off. All I could think about was getting to my teammates. That was the only thing on my mind."

Crawford and the Rays beat the defending World Series champion Red Sox in a tight, well-played Game 7 of the American League Championship Series on Sunday, capping an incredible worst-to-first season with a 3-1 win that was, in many ways, a perfect and fitting finish to their season. Let's count the way the Rays won on this incredible, memorable night