Tampa Twonite

The sports world turns to Tampa tonight.

At The Trop, the Tampa Bay Rays will look to stop the Boston Red Sox from reprising their rise from a 3-1 American League Championship Series deficit like they did last year against the Cleveland Indians. Meanwhile, the NFL Buccaneers are hosting the Seattle Seahawks.

Unless someone has tickets to the pigskin affair at Raymond James Stadium, one would have to assume that Tampa residents’ focus will be on the upstart Rays, who are looking to take their worst-to-first drive to the World Series, which would begin at The Trop against the Philadelphia Phillies Wednesday night.

Just three seasons removed, the 1-4 Seahawks are a poor imitation of their Super Bowl XL pedigree, and one that won’t even have Matt Hasselbeck at the helm: the starting QB is out with a bad back. For their part, the 4-2 Bucs trail the Carolina Panthers in the NFC South by a half-game and should have little trouble in this one.

Nationwide, it shouldn’t even be a consideration. If you’re really a sports fan, you can either watch an attempt at history, or just another run-of-the-mill, NFL regular-season game. I know the NFL rules on TV and all that, but seriously, tonight’s tussle isn’t exactly scintillating.

I know my set wiill be tuned to TBS (provided technical difficulties don’t give us The Steve Harvey Show again like we saw for much of the first inning Saturday night), rather than NBC.  

Let’s see how the Nielsen returns play out in Tampa and around the nation over the next day or so.