If Tex and LAA win 94 each, the M's job is ...
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... to win 95.
Back in the 1970's, Hall of Fame QB Fran Tarkenton wrote a book. There was a paragraph in there, on page 138 or something, that stuck with me for thirty years.
Tarkenton talked about some game that his team lost by a low score ... I think probably it was the 1974 Super Bowl, which went to the Steel Curtain by a 16-6 score.
The sportswriters had snarked at him, after the game, whether he felt bad for his defense. You get it? The guys on the other side of the locker room deserved to win. And you let them down by not holding up your end of the bargain.
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Tarkenton replied calmly then, and he wrote calmly in his autobiography. He said: If our defense gives up 35 points, then my job is to score 38. If we give up 16 points, my job is to score 17.
If we are only able to score 6 points, then it's the defense's job to allow 3. If we score 51 points, their job is to hold the other guys to 48.
And there is not one man in this locker room who doesn't feel that way, Fran said.
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I thought, at the time, that this was brave talk. But watching NFL players take interviews, I have never seen them speak -- or convey -- anything different. As Larry Csonka put it, whoever you like, whoever you don't like, when you strap the helmet on it is US against THEM. If they complete a long pass, you need to score back at them.
You have become accustomed to thinking that you can put together a pantywaist baseball team that wins 88 games and sneaks into the playoffs? Get over it. If the new bar is 94 wins, then you simply have a different goal. It used to be that you could field a good team, and you enjoyed having your bar set so low. Things have changed. You must field an excellent team now.
That's all.
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Tampa Bay has had to compete with Boston and New York, and that's what they have done. Competed.
If the Seattle Mariners were to react to the AL West situation by conceding defeat, then I would stop being a fan of the Seattle Mariners. But I don't think that's what they will do. I think they'll react by saying, "Well, this makes it that much tougher," and they would try to win more games than their opponents.
It is a temptation in life to pick fights only when you are the favorite to win. You walk away from a fistfight when the other man is two inches taller. You withdraw from a division race when the bar has been changed from 90 wins to 93. You blog-debate with posters only when they know less than you, are scared of you, and it's your blog.
You might reply, that is the intelligent thing to do, to make sure that you are the bully. I would argue that there are two components that make up the human mind and heart. One is intelligence, and the other is character.
The Founding Fathers might have calculated an 18.2% chance of winning. They fought anyway, because they believed it was the right thing to do.
The Mariners make $250M per year in gross revenues, selling a pennant race. Trying to win it, is the right thing to do.
The decision to fight is not a purely intellectual ROI calculation. Your beliefs are involved in the decision. Courage is involved in the decision.
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By the way, amigo, Pujols and CJ Wilson are going to be Angels in 2013 as well.
Your friend,
Jeff