Mohawks and cowbells? Must be a Tampa Bay Rays playoff game. Doug Benc/Getty Images

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- With the Rays still needing five outs to preserve their 4-0 lead and tie the World Series at one game apiece, a curious sound arose from the sold out Tropicana Field's grandstands: the unmistakable chorus of "Nah-nah-nah-nah ... Hey-hey-hey ... Good-bye!"

A batter later, Phillies pinch hitter Eric Bruntlett homered to very deep left field.

Timing, you see, is everything. Since Tampa Bay purged the word "Devil" from its team nickname, the rapid evolution of the baseball product has been obvious. As for the fans? Well, the spirit is willing, but the sense of the moment is, at times, weak.

Yes, Rays fans sported a lot of Mohawks and, yes, they rocked the decibel meter in cavernous Tropicana Field but, yes, there were a few gaffes along the way.

Earlier in Game 2's eighth inning, with David Price in his second inning of relief, a smattering of fans in the rightfield bleachers attempted to start the Wave, which seemed out of place in a close game. And then the Rays began serenading the Phillies in farewell -- with the game's outcome in doubt. "This might be the worst use of that song ever," one scribe exclaimed in horror.

Overall, the area did well to embrace the Rays. Business on both sides of the Bay offered encouraging signs or Rays-related discounts. Above the escalator in the Tampa International Airport was an electronic message board, cheering, "Tampa Bay Rays All the Way! Go Rays!!!!!," with, yes, five exclamation points. The light rock looped over the airport sound system is periodically interrupted by a woman's voice welcoming passengers to the "home of the American League champion Tampa Bay Rays."

Nice touches, and reminiscent of longtime sports-crazy towns like Pittsburgh, where a statue of Franco Harris stands alongside one of George Washington in greeting visitors to the Steel City, and like Boston a few years ago, when Nomar Garciaparra recorded an announcement to inform passengers of improvements to Logan Airport.

As one leaves the airport grounds, a roadside sign proclaims, "Welcome to Tampa, City of Champions" sign, boasting about its recent Super Bowl and Stanley Cup wins and about the Arena Bowl, which the Tampa Bay Storm have apparently won five times.

In giving an informal area tour, one Super Shuttle driver, who admits he's "not really a baseball fan," said he still goes to games occasionally, because "tickets are so inexpensive, and parking is free." That's right, parking is free for cars with four or more passengers -- the Rays have gone green. Though tickets have been sold out all postseason, it's a recent development. Even a Rays ticket sales rep, when asked about the price of season tickets on Monday, replied, "cheap."

On Wednesday morning the Ray Ratto of the San Francisco Chronicle referred to Tropicana Field as a "future Costco site" a vision that may not be far off if the Rays' plan for a new waterfront ballpark comes to fruition. (The plans for the state-of-the-art facility can be found at MajorLeaugeDowntown.com.) In the meantime, while most pro and college sports venues are lined with color photos of great moments in team history, at the Trop all of the prints hanging in the press box and in the stadium's lower level are from this year.

In walking through the parking-lot tailgates and the stadium concourses -- many of which have a double yellow line down the center, to guide traffic -- this reporter saw exactly three "vintage" Devil Rays shirts at Game 1, which seemed unusually low for a team that only changed its logo in the offseason. Of course, it's hard to say how many of these people were fans before this year. Far more common were T-shirts symbolically proclaiming, "It's a new day in Tampa Bay" above crossed-out names of the Red Sox and Yankees.

SI had its own recent quandary while planning a possible World Series commemorative issue for the Rays. Typically, those issues include an historical perspective such as alltime team, but what would an alltime Tampa Bay roster look like? The idea was scrapped, though it might have been appropriate to start with Wade Boggs, Fred McGriff and Greg Vaughn, and then add the 22 best players from this year's squad.

This is, after all, a team where manager Joe Maddon can call 24-year-old Scott Kazmir, he of the 47-37 career record, the "best pitcher in franchise history" and do so with a straight face.

To give credit where it's due, Tampa Bay fans sure know how to make noise, even if it sometimes took some prompting from the M.C., a Rayhawked, microphone-wielding man named Rusty, or the scoreboard, which on several occasions incited fans by telling them, "We are going live on Fox."

But nothing compared to the vigor with which they ring a cowbell. Before the game a message on the Jumbotron urged fans to do so responsibly and never without reason. There was even a three-step process to helps fans identify when to ring their bells, purportedly from the made-up organization of C.O.W.B.E.L.L., the Council on Wacky Baseball Entertainment and Loud Legions. Then again, normal baseball conventions are thrown out the window any time the Backstreet Boys perform the national anthem.

More Notes:

• Though devoid of the tradition of the sausage race in Milwaukee or the presidents race in Washington, Tampa Bay's beverage race -- you mean, you didn't know Aquafina, Pepsi and Sierra Mist were indigenous to the area? (they're not, but PepsiCo makes Tropicana products) -- was amusing, complete with the slow-motion replay set to the Chariots of Fire theme.

• Despite the constant exhortations for "more cowbell," by the start of Game 2 the Rays could only offer the same cowbell. The Bay Area's favorite percussion instrument was sold out by the start of Game 2, though reportedly a new shipment is expected in town today.

• Dick Vitale was busy: By day he broke the news on Arizona coach Lute Olson's resignation, and by night he was in the first row wearing a Rays jersey.

• After seeing Rob Schneider sing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" and, later in the seventh-inning stretch, lead a "Let's Go Rays" cheer, the crowd may vote for a rule limiting Rob-Schneider to no more than one Jumbotron appearance per half-inning.

• As good as the Rays have been all season, one can't help but wonder how good they'd be if their No. 1 overall pick from the 1999 draft were still in Tampa Bay. That man, of course, is MVP candidate Josh Hamilton of the Rangers.

• On the Jumbotron, Jayson Werth's birthplace was listed simply as "Springfield," without a state abbreviation. But that information only helps so much because, as is the running joke on The Simpsons, there are a lot of Springfields in the U.S. -- 34, to be exact. (For the record, Werth was born in Illinois's Springfield.)

• Another franchise contrast: While Fox drafted Hall of Famer Mike Schmidt to read the Phillies' starting lineup for Game 1, the Rays stood in a single line and each read his own name, in a manner you'd expect from schoolkids.

• There was something fitting about a National League team's DH trying to bunt with runners on first and second and nobody out, as Chris Coste attempted in the fourth inning of Game 1. You can give an NL manager a DH, but you can't make him use it. Coste, who failed to get the bunt down, had three sacrifice hits this year. He was taking the place of starter Cole Hamels, who had eight sacrifices this season.

• In the afternoon before Game 1, B.J. Upton and his younger brother Justin, who is a Diamondbacks outfielder, were spotted leaving the mall at Tampa's International Plaza carrying bags from Nordstrom's.

• At one point during the team workouts on Tuesday, Peter Gammons and Ken Rosenthal had a pow-pow near the first baseline; alas, SI's own Tom Verducci, a first-time correspondent with TBS this postseason, was not there to complete the triumvirate of preeminent baseball journalists masquerading as sideline analysts.

• It wasn't President Bush's fastball strike before Game 3 of the 2001 World Series at Yankee Stadium, but that Gen. Petraeus throws a nice ball, as he did with the ceremonial first pitch before Game 2.

• If Frank Sinatra's "I've Got You Under My Skin," which was played before the third inning, seemed out of place at a baseball game, well, it was a tribute the Rays played to owner Stuart Sternberg and his wife, Lisa, for their 20th anniversary.