Tradition in Tampa? We're on thin ice

TAMPA - It's not the Yankees this time. No century of history, no House That Ruth Built, no famous facade in the backdrop. It's not Cleveland with Bob Feller throwing out the first pitch. It's not Chicago with ancient references to Eddie Collins, Black Sox, South Siders, and cheapskate Charles Comiskey.

No. We're a little thin on tradition this time. The Red Sox are playing the Tampa Bay Rays in the American League Championship Series and it reminds me of a Graig Nettles line when he found himself playing for the San Diego Padres after a long run with the Yankees. Dressed in his Padres UPS-driver uniform, pining for his old Yankee pinstripes, Nettles said, "You really notice it on Old Timer's Day. In New York we had Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, and Whitey Ford walking into Yankee Stadium. Here it's Nate Colbert coming back trying to sell you a used car."

Ah yes, Tampa-St. Pete. So much nostalgia. So much history. So many memories of beautiful bygone days involving Boston teams.

There was the unforgettable night the Bruins tried to play an exhibition hockey game in September 1991 when former Bruins star Phil Esposito, general manager of the not-yet-born Tampa Bay Lightning (they debuted in 1992-93), was looking forward to bringing the NHL to the hockey hotbed of central Florida. The B's graciously came to town to play the New York Islanders and 9,000 curious Floridians (top ticket: $34.50) filed into the cavernous new Suncoast Dome - the same building that will host the Sox and Rays tonight.

The Bruins' Chris "Knuckles" Nilan was one of the first skaters to notice a problem with the ice surface. The sheet was soft and chippy and green slime oozed from exposed pipes when players skated during warm-ups. Fans booed during an hourlong delay while Dome officials tried to correct the problem. Finally, the game was canceled. More boos. But it was a good move in the name of safety.

Had the game been played, said wise guy Nilan, "They would be calling this the Knuckledome."

Now they call it Tropicana Field and it is truly hideous. Catwalks above. FieldTurf below. All-dirt base paths. Foul poles hanging from the ceiling like sleeping vampire bats. It's baseball's Big Top, a cable-supported dome with a fiberglass roof where chaos and cowbells rule. The Rays, born in 1998, were 57-24 at home this year, including three wins at Disney's Wide World of Sports in Lake Buena Vista. They are 8-1 against the Sox in The Trop.

The Dome is in St. Petersburg, just a Manny Ramírez tape-measure shot from Tampa, where so much more history was made involving Boston sports teams.

The Boston College Eagles made two trips to Tampa to play in the Hall of Fame Bowl, beating Georgia in the inaugural contest in 1986 and losing to Heath Shuler's Tennessee Vols on New Year's Day in 1993. Those games were played at Tampa Stadium, the initial home of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. It was best known as the "Big Sombrero."

The Patriots have played three games in Tampa - one per decade. They beat the Bucs in 1976 and 1985, and lost in 1997. They are hoping to return to Tampa to play in Super Bowl XLIII Feb. 1 at Raymond James Stadium, which is right across the street from George Steinbrenner's Legends Field, spring training home of the Yankees.

Wouldn't that be perfect? The Sox beat the Rays at The Trop in October and the Patriots come here four months later and win the Super Bowl.

In the early 1970s, Winn Boggs went to the Tampa Public Library and checked out Ted Williams's "The Science of Hitting" for his young son. Wade Boggs was a pretty fair hitter and a quarterback/punter at H.B. Plant High School in Tampa and the Red Sox drafted him in the seventh round in 1976. Boggs became a Hall of Fame hitter with the Sox, then came back here to strike his 3,000th hit, a home run, as a member of the Devil Rays in 1999.

Boggs was with the Sox when Al Nipper hit Darryl Strawberry with a pitch at picturesque Al Lang Field (St. Petersburg) in spring training of 1987. It was retaliation for Strawberry's Cadillac trot after homering off Nipper in the seventh game of the 1986 World Series at Shea Stadium.

No discussion of the Red Sox in Tampa Bay is complete without mention of the Sox' central Florida hotel headquarters, a plush resort where Babe Ruth lived when he went to spring training with the Yankees in the 1920s. In the interest of privacy, we will not disclose the name of the hotel (though hundreds of veteran Sox fans regularly stalk the joint), but the establishment became part of Sox folklore in 2004 when relief pitcher Scott Williamson balked at staying there because he claimed the joint was haunted.

Recounting a visit when he was with the Reds in 2003, Williamson said, "I was laying on my stomach and all of a sudden, I couldn't breathe. It was like something was pushing down on me. I turned around, when there was this guy dressed in 1920s-, '30s-style staring at me. I never believed in ghosts before, but, like I said, I couldn't breathe. I told somebody about it the next day and then it was all over the news. It's just crazy stuff. One of those freaky things. I'm not one for ghosts, but I know I couldn't breathe."

And you wonder why Grady Little didn't want to bring Williamson into Game 7 of the 2003 ALCS when Pedro Martínez was clearly cooked?

There's one last bit of Tampa-Boston trivia: In 2006, the Ted Williams Museum and Hitters Hall of Fame was moved to The Trop from Ted's home in Hernando. It's the Rays' version of Monument Park and it's homage to the greatest Red Sox player of all time. The deputy director of the museum is John Papelbon, father of the Red Sox closer.

Pretty cool - for a place that came close to being named the Knuckledome.

Dan Shaughnessy is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at dshaughnessy@globe.com.