It's About Winning, Not Competing
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by user Harold Friend LouGehrig
March 22, 1978: No Business Like Show Business or They're Still the Same.
The New York Yankees are one part baseball and nine parts show business. They are New York, the Big Apple, Broadway. Baseball is entertainment and the Yankees are the ultimate soap opera. The other day, they played an exhibition game against the Red Sox. It wasn't called a baseball game. It was called a MEDIA EVENT because it WAS a media event. The game at Fort Lauderdale had been sold out for weeks, and hours before the game, there were as many people on the field as there were in the stands. The field was strewn with television cables, wires, cameras, and microphones on booms. In the middle of all of this was one Reginald Martinez Jackson, and a few feet away was Yankees' manager Billy Martin. A young man with a tape recorder placed his microphone in front of the erstwhile manager and asked him a provocative question. "Everything has been so quiet around your club this spring; how do you explain it?" Billy Martin's expression didn't change.” We’ve had a couple of killings and three muggings. Maybe a fistfight or so, but all in private in the clubhouse. Nothing to get excited about."
A short distance away, the Yankees' vice president for public relations and marketing surveyed the outfield fence. Among the freshly painted advertisements there was information about a new candy bar called "Reggie," a picture and explanation about Yogi Berra's drink, "Yoo Hoo," reasons why fans should fly with United Airlines, which charters the Yankees' flights, a beautiful scene featuring the Bay Harbor Inn in Tampa, which is owned by George Steinbrenner, a large picture of the Baby Ruth candy bar, laudatory comments about Yankees' sponsor Volkswagen, and the mural of the Galt Ocean Mile, which is the motel that houses the Yankees in the spring.
Carl Yastrzemski, the great Red Sox player, was signing autographs, He was trailed by Phyllis George, the football analyst who had worked with Jimmy the Greek. Billy Martin, who had gone to the clubhouse, returned and sat down on the bench. He is a history buff and asked no one in particular, "What was Napoleon's nationality?" A reporter knew Napoleon was born in Corsica and concluded that he was Italian. "Right," said Billy as he followed that up by asking where Lincoln was born. The response he received was "Kentucky." Billy told the crowd that most individuals didn't know that fact. When someone told Billy that he knew the first book Billy had ever read was Lou Gehrig, A Quiet Hero by Frank Graham, Billy related that when he was in school, he did well in English during the Fall semester but that his Fall "A" dropped to a Spring "D" once baseball started. A few minutes later, Mickey Morabito, the Yankees' director of publicity passed by. "You know my rule," Billy told him firmly. "Absolutely no women in the clubhouse."
COMMENTS: Fans attend baseball games to be entertained and to have a good time. Once a upon a time, a long, long ago, the only time fans were both entertained and had a good time at a baseball game was if their team won. If their team lost, they may have watched the proceedings, but it was the type of entertainment one experiences if one watches the numbers on the gas pump when filling up an SUV. If your team won, you had a good time. It didn't matter if it were a crisply played 2-1 game or a sloppy 11-9, error plagued slugfest. If your team had the 2 and the opponent had 1, or if your team had 11 and the other team had the 9, you had a good time. That was long, long ago.
The purpose players play and fans watch is to win. Bob Gibson was one of the greatest, most intense individuals to ever throw a baseball, sometimes very close to a batter. He epitomizes the antithesis of Vince Lombardi's "Show me a good loser and I'll show you a loser." Hank Aaron, as great a hitter as Gibson was a pitcher, gave a young Braves' outfielder named Dusty Baker some advice he should follow before stepping into the batters box against Gibson. "'Don't dig in against Bob Gibson, he'll knock you down. Don't stare at him. He doesn't like it. If you happen to hit a home run, don't run too slow, don't run too fast. If you happen to want to celebrate, get in the tunnel first. And if he hits you, don't charge the mound, because he's a Gold Glove boxer."
There is an even more revealing story about Gibson long after he retired. He was facing Reggie Jackson in an Old Timers game at Jack Murphy Stadium in San Diego in 1992. Gibson was 56 years old and Reggie was ten years younger. Jackson hit a long home run off Gibson. The next season, the two again faced each other at the Old Timers game. Gibson's first pitch to Jackson knocked Reggie to the ground. He didn't hit a home run off Gibson or get a hit off Gibson that day. Gibson delivered his message, one he doesn't have to send to those who know him.
In 1947, Major League Baseball allowed an individual with a high concentration of the skin pigment, melanin, a pigment possessed in differing amounts by all humans, to play baseball. Jackie Robinson is remembered for helping to break baseball's color barrier, but it must never be forgotten that he was one of the greatest players of all time. He would have been a Hall of Famer based solely on his playing career, which was prevented from beginning until he was twenty eight years old by those who controlled America's National Pastime.
A greater competitor than Jackie Robinson never played the game. He loved the game and loved playing the game, but he didn't play the game for love. Jackie Robinson played the game to win. "It kills me to lose. If I'm a troublemaker, and I don't think that my temper makes me one, then it's because I can't stand losing. That's the way I am about winning, all I ever wanted to do was finish first." "Above anything else, I hate to lose."
Vin Scully, the great broadcaster who began his professional career with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1950, saw most of Robinson's career. Scully holds the record for the longest tenure with the same team and has seen them all. In the 1940s and 1950s, hating to lose and possessing the will to pay any price to win was a positive. April, 2007 marked the 60th anniversary of Robinson's major league debut. When asked what was Jackie Robinson's greatest strength, Scully said, "Among other things, he was probably the most 'incendiary' player who ever played the game. I mean that in the full sense of the word. He not only lit a fire under his ball club, but he was the one person who was probably better angry. When he was angry, he was a one-man force."
Joe Torre has managed the Yankees since 1996. When the 2004 Yankees lost the second round of the playoffs to Boston, Torre became the only manager in baseball history whose team lost a best of seven series after leading the series, three games to none. In recent years, despite the fact that the Yankees have not won a World Championship since 2000, Joe Torre is viewed as an authority on winning. "Competing at the highest level is not about winning. It's about preparation, courage, understanding and nurturing your people, and heart." "I believe anybody who is not afraid to fail is a winner." How do those statements compare to Jackie Robinson's?
Well, Joe, competing IS about winning. Competing and losing to winners brings to mind an old song by Spanky and Our Gang. Perhaps they were referring to the way a team that has just lost the World Series feels.
Sunny afternoons that make me Feel so warm inside Have turned as cold and gray as ashes As I feel the embers die
Of course preparation, courage, and heart are necessary to win, and winners are not afraid to lose. But the satisfaction of knowing one has done one's best isn't even close to the satisfaction of winning. Consolation prizes do not provide enough consolation. References:
Smith, Red. "No Business Like Show Business." The New York Times. 22 March 1978, p.B10.
http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/articles/2005/08/21/resources_a_good_sign_for_jays/?page=4
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Gibson
http://www.jackierobinson.com/about/quotes.html
http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20070412&content_id=1895331&vkey=news_mlb&fext=.jsp&c_id=mlb
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_34/b3998401.htm
http://www.oldielyrics.com/lyrics/spanky_our_gang/sunday_will_never_be_the_same.html
