ST. PETERSBURG Babe Ruth Jersey , Fla. (AP) — Thanks to an infusion of young talent, the Tampa Bay Rays overcame a slow start to win 90 games and spawn lofty expectations for next season.What was supposed to a rebuilding year for the Rays, who trimmed payroll in the winter and purged the roster again, might have been even more special if not for the success of AL East rivals Boston and New York.The Red Sox repeated as division champion with 108 victories and the Yankees won 100 to earn AL’s top wild-card berth.The Rays finished 18 games behind Boston and 10 behind New York, but weren’t eliminated from post-season contention until Sept. 24.“I hope we don’t have two 100-win teams in our division next year,” manager Kevin Cash said. “But if we do, we’re one of them.”First-time All-Star Blake Snell led the major leagues with 21 wins and an AL-leading 1.89 ERA, rookie Joey Wendle played solid defense while hitting .300 in 139 games, and C.J. Cron had 30 homers and 74 RBIs after being acquired during a trade in spring training.“As an organization there was some amount of satisfaction that came with the work that we’ve been doing the last several years to prepare a young group coming through our minor leagues … and to see that finally hit our major league team,” general manager Erik Neander said.“When we look back at this year, hopefully it will be seen as the year that started off a run of many competitive, playoff achieving seasons,” Neander added, “and hopefully, a championship in there at some point.”The Rays lost 12 of 15 to begin the season http://www.bravesfanproshop.com/authentic-dale-murphy-jersey , digging themselves into a hole few people felt they were capable of escaping after a winter that saw them trade Evan Longoria, Steven Souza Jr., Corey Dickerson and Jake Odorizzi and lose starting pitcher Alex Cobb to free agency.They trimmed salary again in July, unloading pitchers Chris Archer, Nathan Eovaldi and Alex Colome, as well as All-Star catcher Wilson Ramos and Denard Span to make way for the youth movement that keyed a second-half surge.The Rays went 41-25 after the All-Star break, including 19-9 in September. They were 9-1-2 over their last 12 series.“Coming out of spring training we didn’t know what kind of club we were going to have on the field as far as wins and losses,” Cash said, “but we knew we had a good group of guys, a good core group of guys and a lot to look forward to … with some of younger players getting opportunities.”One of the keys to overcoming the slow start was creative use of the bullpen that included the introduction of “openers” — relievers who started games and generally faced from three to nine batters.A “bullpen day” starter, by comparison, usually pitched deeper into games though normally no more than twice through an opposing team’s lineup.Prior to the debut of the “opener” on May 19, the Rays ranked 22nd in the majors in ERA. From that day forward, they were third-best behind the Dodgers and Astros.“I think any time you’re trying something a little bit different, you don’t know how it’s going to be perceived and how it will work out Freddie Freeman Jersey ,” senior vice president of baseball operations Chaim Bloom said. “You know you’re going to learn along the way, and we did learn. Overall, we were very pleased with how it went.”Some things to know about the Rays:DOMINANT SNELLSnell had 27 starts in which he allowed two or fewer runs, most by an AL pitcher since Wilbur Wood had 27 for the White Sox in 1972. The last two AL pitchers to win at least 21 games and a sub-2.00 ERA were Roger Clemens for the Red Sox in 1990 and Ron Guidry for the Yankees in 1978.RARE COMPANYThe Rays, who made the playoffs four times in six seasons from 2008-2013, have won at least 90 games six times over the last 11 seasons. The Red Sox (seven) and Dodgers (seven) and Yankees (six) are the only teams with as many or more during that stretch.NOT SATISFIEDCash called finishing with a winning record an “accomplishment,” but noted the standard for the organization is much higher.“We’re not going to settle for just the feel good story … but you’ve got to be proud of what’s taken place to this point, and we are,” the manager said. Most people who collect sports cards when they are kids usually end up storing them in boxes for years and years. That’s where they stay until something prompts the desire to go through them.For a 76-year-old man from New Jersey who asked to be identified only by his first name, John, it was seeing an ad in a newspaper earlier this year for a 1952 Mickey Mantle card being sold by Heritage Auctions with an estimated value of $3.5 million .At first, he was sure the listed price was an error.”I told my daughter, `this is going to be interesting. Tomorrow’s New York Times, they’re going to print they had a typo and they had an extra zero in it,”’ John told The Associated Press in a phone interview. ”I really thought they had made a terrible mistake.”When he didn’t see a correction the following day http://www.bravesfanproshop.com/authentic-bobby-cox-jersey , he began looking through the collection he jointly owns with his older brother, Ed. And when he saw the card sold by former NFL lineman Evan Mathis went for $2.88 million , that’s when John decided to call Heritage to have them evaluate his cards.As it turns out, their collection includes five Mantle Topps cards from 1952, similar to the one Mathis sold. However, that card was graded a Mint 9 by PSA, one of the leading sports memorabilia authenticators. The best in the brothers’ collection is a PSA 8.5 that has been valued at $1 million by Heritage and is part of its Summer Platinum Night Sports Auction that runs through Aug. 19.John recalled he and his brother began collecting cards in 1951 when they were growing up in West Hartford, Connecticut. John was 9 years old at the time, and Ed was 12, and they each had separate collections that got merged at some point years later when they were being stored.Their cards are from 1951 and 1952, and nothing after.”For reasons unknown, we didn’t save anything after that, from 1953,” John said. ”I guess my brother sort of outgrew it, and as the big brother stopped saving cards the little brother apparently did as well.”There was a big attic in their house and John said a lot of things were stored there over the years after they were no longer being used http://www.bravesfanproshop.com/authentic-bob-uecker-jersey , including his Cub scout uniform and his Army uniforms. At some point the cards went up there, too.That’s where they remained until his mother passed away in late 2006. Her house was sold and her belongings were divided between John and his brother, who lives in Massachusetts. The cards ended up in John’s basement.”We always knew we had the cards, but they were just in the attic,” John said. ”We were fortunate our mother stayed and lived in the house until she was almost 102. Most people would have moved at some point, and in the move things like baseball cards and old school books would get thrown away. Ours just stayed there for 50 years.”At one point around 1980 by John’s estimate, he talked to a dealer and described what he had and without seeing the cards, the dealer offered him $8,000. However, it wasn’t a priority for him to do anything with them at the time.Not until he saw the big price tag for Mathis’ card and reached out to Heritage.”Part of the anxiety is you don’t know how (to sell the cards),” John said. ”If you go to a dealer who is buying them, your best interest isn’t his primary one. With an auctioneer, the better you do, the better they do.”And the brothers’ collection is already doing quite well. There were 26 cards sold in Heritage’s auction in July for a total of $384,000. That included a PSA 7.5 ($200 Tyler Flowers Jersey ,000) and a PSA 5 ($72,000) that both returned more than estimated.The current auction has six cards from their collection, including the Mantle PSA 8.5, and their final two Mantle cards – a PSA 7 estimated at $100,000 and another PSA 5 estimated at $40,000 – will be part of an offering in the fall.John credited his father, who was an avid collector of stamps, coins and postcards with pictures of bridges, for instilling the sense of preserving collections in him and his brother.”We didn’t abuse them,” he said of the cards. ”They were a collection. We watched how he did things and we did the same.”Asked if he had any plans for his share of the money from the sale of the cards, John said he avoids thinking about that.”It seems tempting fate to be planning too far in advance of what are you going to do, a counting-your-chickens syndrome,” he said.—Follow Vin Cherwoo at www.twitter.com/VinCherwooAP