2020 Tampa Bay Rays
Growing up in the 90's, I played more than a few of those old baseball games. Some had the licensing from MLB to use the team nicknames, but not the MLBPA permission to use the real player names, and there were other games that had it reversed. For example, anyone who played "Frank Thomas Big Hurt Baseball" could play as the actual Big Hurt...on the Chicago (A) team, not the White Sox. Anyway, those old games also gave you the choice when you started a new season for a custom amount of games and innings you wanted to play in case you were too busy as a kid to play an entire 162 game season...or if you didn't trust your cartridge game to last all 9 innings (I'm looking at you, NES games).
Anyway, those options come to mind when I recall the...unique situation that 2020 turned out to be. The panic and fear of the unknown that the Coronavirus caused as it spread throughout the world triggered the immediate suspension of all sports. The NBA and NHL all stopped mid-season, the XFL died and MLB cancelled the end of their preseason and the question was raised if the MLB and MLBPA could agree to a season at all. Thankfully an agreement was reached with some special stipulations. Just to name a couple: a 60 game season and all double headers would feature 7 inning games instead of 9. To cut down the risk from travel, schedules would be limited to only divisional foes in both the AL and NL; The Texas Rangers would only play their fellow AL West teams and the NL West. Oh, and no fans would be allowed in the stadiums.
The Tampa Bay Rays were looking to benefit from the special playoff format for 2020 where additional teams would be allowed to make up for the shorter schedule, but they wouldn't need it as Kevin Cash would manage his team to an American League best 40-20 record to win the AL East by 7 games over the 2nd place Yankees. The playoff format would feature additional 2020 quirks. The Wild Card series would be the only one to feature home field advantage while the rest of the playoffs would be held at neutral sites. The Rays had the 1 seed in the AL, thus getting to host the Toronto Blue Jays, who they swept in 2 games.
The ALDS would see the Rays face the New York Yankees all the way off in Petco Park in San Diego. The Yankees took Game 1, while the Rays struck back quickly to go up 2-1. After the Yankees forced Game 5, the Rays were able to advance when Mike Brosseau hit the go-ahead homer in the bottom of the 8th off Aroldis Chapman, who had been suspended the prior month when he had thrown at Brosseau's head.
For the ALCS, the Rays found themselves as the favorite for most baseball fans when they squared off against the defending AL champion Houston Astros. This was the 1st postseason after the world found out about the Astros cheating scandals, and most fans didn't want to see the "Trashtros" rewarded with another pennant. The Rays seemed like they were well on their way to the World Series when they jumped to a 3-0 series lead (still playing at the neutral site Petco Park). The Astros rallied back to tie the series 3-3, but the Rays rebounded to take Game 7 and claim their 2nd pennant.
The World Series would be against the Los Angeles Dodgers, hosted at Globe Life Field at Arlington, Texas. The Rays had survived back-to-back winner-take-all playoff series finales but couldn't force one more when they fell behind 3-2 in the World Series and lost Game 6 by a score of 3-1.
