Good news.  At 2:04 p.m. last Wednesday The Ray Area expanded by one member when my son, John, was born at Women’s Hospital.  (Up first, teaching him how to view pages…).  Honestly, that has nothing to do with this blog but, you should care for two reasons.  First, it explains the long drought of new material.  Second, and more importantly, when the Mrs. has children, the Rays play in October.

Check out the floor of my son's nursery.

Seriously.  It is a lead pipe lock.

My oldest daughter was born in May 2008.  The Rays took over first place in the East the weekend she was born and gave me the ability to go around telling everyone that she had never known a world in which the Rays were not the Beast of the East.  Then, my second daughter was born in February 2010, just as the future AL East Champs were about to report at Port Charlotte.  Giving me a whole second round with that worn out one-liner.

But this summer has been weird.  I knew John wouldn’t be born until September and, when things were bad, I decided 2011 would not count as his first season.  After all, if he were a September call-up that debuted on 9/7, this month wouldn’t start his service-time clock so, in an effort to preserve our streak, I was going to write off September 2011 because I didn’t think there was any chance in hell that we were going to the playoffs.

Then this weekend happened.

So here is my decision.  If we actually run down Boston, then September counts for the child-playoff streak.  If we don’t, 2012 is John’s rookie year.  Is that a little spin-y?  Yes.  But I used to be a PR guys so, what do you want from me?  I spin, baby.

Three quick post scripts that do no deserve an entire post:

1. Do not get any ideas in your head about us having a baby every summer just so the Rays can be a perennial contender.  The club is either going to have to start paying significant child support to me or figure out another way to keep ahead of the division.  This stuff ain’t cheap.

2. The Mrs. has been predicting that we would catch Boston since mid-July.  Even when I argued so convincingly that we had very little chance of that, she stuck to her guns.  So, it is going to be bittersweet if we run down the Sawx.  I’ll be excited for another October but there will be no living with the Mrs. and her “I told you so.”

3. Dave Schoenfield, the big boss at The Sweet Spot, posted THIS last night.  Yeah baby!  Dave is a good guy so I know he won’t mind me pointing out that I emailed him when the ESPN Dog Days calendar (a series they ran on potential playoff teams that was written, in part, by Sweet Spot-ers) came out last month asking what the Rays had to do to get a spot in the list.  His response: “Change Divisions!”  Glad you came around Dave, perhaps I can refer all the Mrs.’s “I told you so” comments to you.  You owe me that much.