Rays dressed for success?

The answer to the old question "Who wears the pants in this family?" was "everybody" - much to the dismay of anyone with a sense of fashion.

The Tampa Bay Rays like to act like a family, which is why they all showed up in New York Sunday night wearing the garish trousers made famous (or infamous) by pro golfer John Daly.

Those brightly colored, boldly patterned Loudmouth- brand pants were homage to Clarence "Pants" Rowland, manager of the 1917 Chicago White Sox. Rowland's team sustained the indignity of being on the receiving end of two no-hitters that year but went on to win the World Series.

Rays manager Joe Maddon would like his team (victim of a pair of no-hitters this season) to see history repeat itself. Toward that end, he would like his players to stay loose. Thus, he had them all wear the wild-looking slacks that might make your lunch repeat itself.

Maddon had his own Loudmouths tailored, then found a Tampa shop willing to sell him an aqua sports jacket and white patent leather shoes to complete the ensemble.

"It cost me about 130 bucks," he said on the bench at Yankee Stadium before a 10-3 rout of the Yankees that helped the loose team tighten the American League East race. The Rays are only a half-game out of first and have secured the tiebreaker by winning the season series 10-8. They did so by splitting this four-game series despite having lost the first two.

"That's big. This is a tough place to play," winning pitcher David Price said. "That's a tough team."

Not that the Rays were worried. "This is what you work to do. Everything you play for is this moment," Maddon said. "I think it's a blast and I think our players would say the same thing. Of course you feel it; you feel that extra barometric pressure, whatever that is, that weighs down on you. But it's a good thing. If you don't have that, it means nothing good is going on."

The Rays are seven games up on the Red Sox in the wild- card chase and are basically a lock to make the playoffs. "I've been an anti-assumptionist for the past several years and I'm not going to start [assuming] now," Maddon said.

He also is anti-convention when it comes to believing that wearing $1,000 suits to go on a chartered plane makes a difference.

"I think the laid-back atmosphere on this team, in this clubhouse, begins with Joe," said outfielder Rocco Baldelli, who began this season as a coach and had two hits last night. "I think Joe embraces it and I think the players embrace it. We really don't get too upset when things aren't going our way."

Maddon took it in stride during a loss at the Stadium on Monday when he called in lefthander Randy Choate from the bullpen and righthander Grant Balfour showed up. "I was on the mound," the manager said, "and all of a sudden I'm giving the ball to the pitcher, and it didn't look like Randy Choate."

No big deal. When you've worn Loudmouth pants into the lobby of a posh hotel, you have a high embarrassment threshold.

Then again, even the Rays have their limits. They kept the wild wardrobe in their luggage on the way out of New York. "I don't think," Baldelli said, "I'll ever wear those pants again."