Rays tales

BLINDED BY THE LIGHT: The upcoming 25th anniversary of the classic Yankees-Red Sox one-game playoff has Lou Piniella reliving his famous play in rightfield, when he lost Jerry Remy's ninth-inning line drive in the sun but still managed to stop the ball, saving the lead, the day and the season.

Sitting and watching a tape of the play, as he did recently with a writer, was not easy.

"Seeing that play made me nervous: "Damn, I could have missed that ball,"' Piniella said Saturday. "That was the most fun game I ever played in. There hasn't been anything remotely close to it. Yankees-Red Sox. Fenway Park. You win you go forward, you lose you go home. That's a nice situation."

OH CANADA: Pete LaForest didn't exactly grow up dreaming of being a catcher for the rayons de diable. In LaForest's hometown of Hull, Quebec, most of the kids spoke French and had hockey sticks in their hands.

But LaForest, whose real first name is Pierre-Luc, couldn't afford the costs of competitive hockey, so he turned to baseball after being introduced to it by his father. He slowly learned the game and eventually became one of Canada's top youth players, moving to Montreal to be part of the national team program. He signed with the Expos, only to have his contract voided due to a supposed back problem.

He then made a bold move, going to Fort Scott Community College in Kansas to play ball and learn English. "It was good," LaForest said. "If I needed to say something, I learned pretty quick."

He speaks English fluently now, with a slight accent, and has another goal: to learn Spanish.

"I'd like to have someone hit 37 home runs and drive in 100 runs and say they're struggling."

- LOU PINIELLA, manager, responding to questions about Yankees star Jason Giambi