The success of the Tampa Bay Rays may seem to be quite remarkable to the baseball world, but it can only be fully appreciated if you have some idea of how truly dreadful this team and this franchise has been over the past decade. Everything associated with or touched by it was a disaster on an almost unbelievable scale.

For most of the country, the Devil Rays were barely a blip on the sports radar — some team from somewhere in Florida that your team could pound on. Or, if you had no horse in the American League, it was simply the perennial doormat of the American League East. It was the team that all National League teams wanted to draw for inter-league play, and, in fact, when the Marlins won the National League East, there were complaints that they got to play the Devil Rays each year (geographic rival) and pick up some easy and illegitimate wins. For most baseball fans it was easier to just ignore the entire tragic mess.

For those of us living in Florida, it was not quite so easy to ignore this abomination on the National Pastime. The Tampa Bay Devil Rays, in their gaudy colored uniforms more appropriate for a softball beer league, were like a huge zit despoiling the face of baseball.

Let’s start with the home field. It does not qualify as a ballpark, doesn’t rise to the level of a stadium, and clearly is not an arena. What, then, is Tropicana Field? It once was the Suncoast Dome, became the ThunderDome when the Lightning skated there, and finally became “The Can,” or as the Orange Juice people would have it, Tropicana Field. From the outside it looks like a UFO that somehow arrived in a forsaken area of St. Petersburg, a city best known for its reputation as “God’s waiting room.”

When the Devil Rays started playing there in 1998, their inaugural year, and I first made a trip there, it had clearly earned its moniker. “The Can” had a grimy look built into its paint job, and the floors always seemed a bit slimy. A gloom hung in the air. Most attractive of all were the birds that flew around this indoor facility. At first I thought they were mechanical devices to give a bit of an outdoor feel to the venue, but indeed they were real and left deposits to attest to their reality.

“The Can” made the Metrodome seem like Dodger Stadium. It was several years before I could bring myself to return, even though it was such a bird friendly environment.

One of the first signs of change was a concerted effort by Ray’s ownership to clean the place. In recent years, both the birds and the slime have been removed. Still, “The Can” maintains its essential unattractiveness. As we all know, you can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig.

The other problem is location. Even if you live in Tampa, the drive to a Rays game across the causeway and on to downtown St. Petersburg can be an ordeal. For those of us in Orlando, it is a major ordeal. I can drive to a hockey game or football game in Tampa in just over an hour, while a trip to “The Can” may easily turn into two “slow and go” hours. If the venue were on the other side of Tampa Bay, it would attract more fans from Central Florida and Tampa.

Once there, you were likely to see a dreadful exhibition of baseball. In four seasons the Rays lost the most games in baseball. Year after year, the Rays finished last in the American League East with only one exception in 2004. They never won more than 70 games in a season. Bad pitching, combined with poor fielding, supplemented by inept base running, mixed with the inability to drive in runs, made it painful to watch. The play was so bad that very little of it was shown on television. When they were on, local announcers matched the level of play.

It was not surprising that the crowds were small. What surprised me was that anyone was there at all. Then, in the past four years, the Rays began to accumulate some very good young players, finally using their draft choices wisely and building a strong farm system. The ownership changed with the much — and deservedly — maligned Vince Naimoli finally selling the team to a new and energetic ownership that brought in new management. They also hired Joe Maddon as manager.

Over the past two seasons, the talent began to show on the field although it did not immediately translate into wins. Last year, I saw the team early in the season and it looked like a much improved group. Still they went out and lost 96 games and finished with the worst record again.

This season the Rays won 97 games and finished atop the American League East. They had the best home record in baseball. When they swept the Red Sox early in the season it caught some attention. When they swept the Cubs in June it raised more eyebrows. But the most telling development came when the Rays went into the All-Star break on a seven-game losing streak, leaving everyone wondering if they were reverting to form. Coming out of the break they stopped the slide and then remained strong in August, and tough in September, fending off every challenge from the Yankees and Red Sox.

Slowly, as July turned into August and then September, the fans started coming to “The Can” in significant numbers — to see the home team rather than the visitors. By early September, the fever was growing. The cowbells were ringing and Mohawk hairstyles and wigs were multiplying. The real question that lies ahead for this franchise is whether these fans, caught in the heat of the pennant race, will return in April and stay throughout the long hot Florida summer in the numbers that this remarkable group of owners, administrators, manager, coaching staff and players deserve.

This was the most successful exorcism in centuries as the Rays won their division, the first round of the playoffs against the White Sox, and the American League Championship from the Red Sox. The team dealt with adversity that came in waves. It may seem unlikely to those who have only read about the transformation, but for those of us who have witnessed it, this season of the Rays has been something approaching a miracle.