Marooned Rays in bonding mode

0 Comments | USA TODAY, October, 2008 | by Mel Antonen

WILMINGTON, Del. -- The Tampa Bay Rays expected to be home Tuesday, either preparing for the winter or for Game6 of the World Series.

Instead, they were waking up in an elegant Italian Renaissance hotel in Delaware, where the likes of Joe DiMaggio, John F. Kennedy, Norman Rockwell and Katherine Hepburn stayed when they visited Wilmington.

Hotel du Pont, built in 1913, a year after Fenway Park opened, was the only hotel the Rays' traveling secretary, Jeff Ziegler, could find after cold and rain suspended Game5 Monday in a 2-2 sixth-inning tie.

The Rays planned to go home after the game, so they checked out of the Westin in Philadelphia and found the hotel couldn't get them back in.

"It could have turned out a lot worse," Ziegler said...