World Series Game 1

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No Dodgers.

No Red Sox.

No ready-made sizzle for Fox Sports in the World Series.

Can you imagine the drama of Manny Ramirez coming up tonight in Fenway Park for his first at-bat of the World Series? Can you picture the shaking fists of the bitter crowd? Can you see the dreadlocks hanging in effigy from a hundred signs? Can you see the disgust on the face of Curt Shilling, wherever he’s sitting?

Instead, we get the the Phillies and Tampa Bay, the Rays an admittedly talented group of young players with a seemingly bright future, but no past to build on.

At least Boston stretched Tampa Bay to seven games in the ALCS, giving the Rays their biggest burst of national exposure. Game 7 on TBS got the highest rating of any major league game this season.

But was that merely because, the Red Sox, down three games to one, had come back from a 7-0 deficit in Game 5 and had seemed on the verge of another memorable comeback.

But with Boston out of the picture, can Tampa Bay stand on its own?

Ed Goren, president of Fox Sports, concedes that it will take time for the audience to learn who these guys are and that might require the series to stretch to six or seven games to build enough interest and familiarity in the Rays.

Fox didn’t get much help in Game 1 Wednesday night. Even though it was a one-run game, Philadelphia winning, 3-2, there wasn’t much action because of the brilliant pitching on both sides. Watching fastballs and sliders land in the Fox Trax strike zone isn’t going to keep anybody transfixed by their big screen.

Even the one potential moment of controversy, a chance for a good, old-fashioned screaming match between a manager and an umpire, was a disappointment.

Fox had wired plate umpire Tim Welke. So when Tampa Bay Manager Joe Madddon vehemently protested when a balk wasn’t called on the Phillies’ Cole Hamels in the sixth-inning -- Maddon uttered a few profanities that didn’t require a professional lip reader to detect -- their confrontation at the end of the inning offered promise.

Instead, they calmly discussed the call like two stock brokers analyzing a portfolio. Lou Piniella is more colorful confronting an umpire in that commercial for bottled water.

Oh well, there’s always Game 2.

And Games 6 and 7 if Goren is lucky.

-- Steve Springer