The Rays’ Consolation Prize: An Extended Stay in Lovely Wilmington, Del.

The Rays accomplished quite a bit Monday night. They managed to scrape out the game-tying run against Philly ace Cole Hamels in the sixth inning (in frigid temperatures, in a torrential downpour, in front of a hostile crowd).

Down 3-1 in the World Series, they have new life -- a clean slate with three innings of play to book a return trip to Tampa Bay. Perhaps best of all, they won't have to deal with Hamels again in the series.

The reward for their heroic efforts? An indefinite hotel stay in beautiful Wilmington, Del. (population 72,286; home to Delaware State University; fictional setting for the novel Fight Club; and land of no sales tax) until Bud Selig and his cronies determine baseball can resume in the City of Brotherly Love*.

You see the Rays, figuring like everyone else that Game 5 would end sometime Monday night or in the wee hours of Tuesday morning, checked out of their hotel in downtown Philadelphia Monday afternoon. When Major League Baseball suspended the game in the middle of the sixth inning, they weren't able to extend their stay there, or apparently at any other lodging in Philly proper.

One glance at a map, and you can see that Wilmington isn't very far from Philadelphia -- something in the neighborhood of 35 miles.

Still, it's awfully amusing that because of the Game 5 debacle/mess/misfortune, the AL champions will now have to cross a state line just to get to the ballpark whenever action in the World Series continues.

*Permitting, of course, it can resume during a primetime national broadcast on FOX.