Warning: This is yet another blog entry about my Tampa Bay Rays.

I never paid attention to the game. It was hard with Vinny Testaverde always throwing the ball to the other team. So my dad gave me money to buy nacho chips at the concession stand.

When I asked why our team never tried to win in the fourth quarter, my dad said the Bucs were contractually obligated to lose. Which is why we always left early to beat the traffic out of Tampa Stadium.

I never cared that my brother played more innings on our little league team. I got to be the first-base coach, and root him on. I saw it as an opportunity to be like my dad, who was our team's head coach.

When I was asked who would win the 1987 World Series, I said the Twins. My dad wanted to know in how many games. I said seven. I didn't know what I was talking about. But I liked talking to my dad.

I was right, by the way. The Twins won that year -- in seven games.

My dad was right, too. He taught me to always root for the home team.

So when we finally got one in 1998, he took me to the inaugural game of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.

Like the Bucs, they weren't very good. In fact, they sucked. But the Bucs eventually won the Super Bowl. It took the team 27 years, so I figure I may have to wait that long for the D-Rays to get good, especially being in the same division as the Yankees and Red Sox, two of the highest-salaried teams in the league, while the Rays are perpetually at the bottom of the pay scale for players. But if and when we ever made it, the wait would be worth it.

How was I to know that all it took was the removal of "devil" from our team name for hell to freeze over?

Because, as I write this blog entry dedicated to my father on the eve of his 61st birthday, the Tampa Bay Rays are already in the 2008 Major League Baseball postseason and one win away from clinching the American League East division title -- yeah, the same division as the Yankees and Red Sox.

And while I harbor no delusions that the Rays will actually make the World Series, much less win the thing, I think back 21 years ago to the conversation my dad and I had in the bar area of a restaurant where the first game of the '87 Series was playing on TV. I think about the fact that at that point, my dad had never attended a regular-season Major League Baseball game.

Three years later, we would take a vacation to the San Francisco Bay area to catch a couple of Giants and A's games -- I guess he wanted his (and me and brother's) first big-league fan experiences to be watching the two teams that played each other in the previous season's World Series.

He'd have to wait 18 years to root for a "good" team in person again. My dad has had season tickets to the dismal Devil Rays for 11 years now. This year, the Rays started winning games in late innings; the "contractually obligated to lose" line that he once applied to his football team no longer applied to his baseball team either.

He had season tickets to see the Bucs during the worst stretch of their history. At some point, we stopped going to games. But not before instilling in me a lifelong affection for losing teams. So I was prepared for being a Devil Rays fan. So far, he hasn't stopped to going games. And I haven't either.

When I spent the 2003 summer in Chicago, I caught the first meeting ever between the Devil Rays and Cubs. It was my dad on the other end of my cell phone who told me what was going on at home plate following Sammy Sosa's first-inning at-bat. He was watching the infamous corked-bat incident on TV, and Wrigley Field doesn't have a JumboTron.

I moved away from Tampa later that year to come to work for The Bee. But when I came home for my wedding in 2006, I arrived in town on my birthday, and within hours of getting off the plane, I was at Tropicana Field watching a Devil Rays game. That's how much my dad loves his home team, and -- I like to think -- how much he enjoys watching games with me.

It hasn't been easy being a fan of my home team these past five years in Fresno. But I was on the phone again with my dad in Oakland last month as our Rays out-lasted the A's for 12 innings. He was watching the game (and looking for me) on TV.

And I was following along with the MLB At Bat application on my wife's iPhone when the Rays clinched their first-ever postseason berth this past Saturday (by beating the Twins); my dad was giving me the play-by-play of the celebration.

As excited as I am to get to watch three postseason games (at minimum) on national TV featuring my Rays, I'm more excited for my dad. No matter what happens at the conclusion of this season, it has been a dream. And while I didn't do much to help the Rays get to where they are (besides heckling Rickey Henderson that one time in St. Petersburg and trying to not get killed in August rooting for the away team in the same stadium where the Raiders play), I know my dad helped.

When people jibe me for using the term "my team," even though I don't actually "own" any part of the team, I point to the fact that because of my dad, I am emotionally invested. And I couldn't think of a better return on my investment than the season we've had this year -- other than a division title atop your birthday cake.

So, here's to hoping the Rays win tonight, so you can have a smile on your face all day tomorrow.

Happy birthday, Dad. I miss you. And I love you.

UPDATE: Tampa Bay lost tonight, but so did the Red Sox. So it's official: the Rays are the AL East division champions.