The Tampa Bay Rays played their 1,000th game since their name change on Tuesday night.

The Devil Rays became the Rays prior to the 2008 season.

"We're really proud," Joe Maddon said. "This is something that we envisioned when we first began in 2006. It was a lot more difficult to imagine at that time. ... Now it's up to us to sustain it and build upon it. Establish a tradition."

Maddon and the present ownership took over prior to the 2006 season, a time when the organization's culture had to be changed.

"We had to really confront the Yankees and the Red Sox in order to ascend in our division -- and actually, the confrontation was physical during that 2008 year," Maddon said. "It became physical. Nobody's going to give you anything, ever. You have to earn your respect, you have to earn your stripes, all of that.

"That's the part about this. If you're proud of one thing it's that you earned your right to be considered this right now. And it started that year. We played better, we had different personnel. But we fought for our turf, and I think when we did that there was a different perspective coming from [opposing dugouts]."