Having the majors' best record has made Rays fans confident like never before. Mike Carlson/Icon SMI Tom Verducci's Mailbag Tom Verducci will answer select questions from SI.com users in his Baseball Mailbag. Name: Email: Hometown: Question: SEND Related Links VERDUCCI: First half awards SCOUTING REPORT: Phillies' Chase Utley SCOUTING REPORT: White Sox' Carlos Quentin GALLERY: Best first-half moments DONOVAN: Rays rising to challenge BASEBALL PROSPECTUS: Defense keys Rays turnaround

Halfway home to the postseason, baseball looks more and more like a game that's never been more popular and, not coincidentally, more up for grabs. The Rays, Marlins, Twins and Athletics are fighting for playoff spots, while the Mets, Dodgers, Braves and Mariners are fighting for .500. If you go strictly by best records, your World Series favorites, ladies and gentlemen, are the Rays and Cubs. Combined World Series championships by those franchises over the past century? Uh, that would be zero.

To help you sort through a half-crazy half season, here is a look at the top stories from the first half and a look at the biggest stories to come in a second half that promises to be just as nutty.

Top First Half Stories

1. The turnaround of the Rays. They could play .500 baseball the rest of the way and still win 90 games, though the consistency of their pitching and defense suggest they'll go higher than that. The bullpen has gone from the worst in half a century (6.06) to lockdown mode (3.21). And just imagine if left-handed phenom David Price can give them another power arm in the second half.

2. Chipper Jones and the pursuit of .400. The odds are heavily against him, but Jones takes a .394 average into July, demanding our attention. "What did Chipper do?" might become to water coolers in 2008 what "Did Mac or Sammy hit one" was in 1998.

3. The continuation of parity. Half the teams in baseball are within five games of .500. The three teams with the lowest payrolls in baseball (Marlins, Rays, Athletics) are closer to a playoff spot than the three teams with the highest payrolls (Yankees, Tigers, Mets).

4. The fallacy of the one-player-away theory. Look at the biggest trades of the offseason: The Twins traded Johan Santana to the Mets, the Marlins traded Miguel Cabrera to the Tigers, the Orioles traded Erik Bedard to the Mariners and the Athletics traded Dan Haren to the Diamondbacks. Each of the teams that dumped the star player has a better record than the team that gave up young talent to get him.

5. The passing of the old guard. There are no jobs for Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds, Mike Piazza and Sammy Sosa, as baseball increasingly values young, homegrown players. None of the top 15 home-run hitters and only three of the top 25 have passed their 35th birthday (Jason Giambi, Chipper Jones, Manny Ramirez). Only one of the top 40 ERAs belongs to a pitcher older than 35 (Greg Maddux) -- all but five of those top 40 belong to those in their 20s. Age, in an era of testing for steroids and amphetamines, is an important part of evaluation again.

Top Second Half Stories

1. The C.C. Sabathia sweepstakes. You may not have to wait too long. Cleveland will probably pull the trigger on a deal soon, having narrowed its list of matches to four teams, with two others still in the running as contingencies. And it's not far-fetched to think that non-traditional buyers such as the Rays, Brewers and Phillies will be in the bidding.

2. The revival of the Tigers. It took 81 games for Detroit to have more wins than losses this year. The offense that some suspected might push 1,000 runs will have to pick up the pace just to get to 800, but a hot June may be an indication the Tigers will be a big second-half team. The first-place White Sox, however, are the ones with the far superior pitching.

3. The backing up of the truck in Seattle. The Mariners will need years to recover from the mess that they are, but the cleanup should start now. Just about anybody except Felix Hernandez is expendable, including Bedard.

4. The health of David Ortiz. A strong farm system has provided the depth Boston needed to withstand injuries to Ortiz, Daisuke Matsuzaka, Curt Schilling and Mike Lowell, but no void has been as great as the one caused by a wrist injury to Ortiz. He is the single most important player of the second half, especially because wrist injuries often have lingering effects even after the player returns to the lineup. Other key players coming back from injuries: Albert Pujols, Carlos Zambrano, Fausto Carmona and Joel Zumaya, who is back but still shedding some rust.

5. Chicago baseball. The Cubs and White Sox enter the second half with fairly firm grips on first place and managers who are the dominant personality of each team. Wouldn't it be something if the Cubs draw the White Sox in the World Series to try to break their 100-year championship drought? In any case, the All-Star Game, with the World Series home-field advantage at stake, seems especially important this year because home teams have held a decided edge this season. They have won 56.6 percent of the time this year, up from 54.2 percent last year and the highest percentage this decade.