9. I think I hate to do this. I really do. We're in Week 6 of the football season, but I have to give some advice to Joe Torre and Brian Cashman right now, because they are decent men, even if they do work for the Evil Empire. Get in a car sometime this month, and drive 3½ hours up I-95 to Foxboro. Visit the Patriots. Or if you're inclined to go a place where you might be more invisible, fly to Chicago, rent a car and drive north to Lake Forest, where the Bears are headquartered. Learn how to build a winning team and how to navigate through the noise that disrupts every big-market team today.
Visit the Patriots. Watch them practice football. Notice how many of their players are football players. Look at the balls they use. Footballs. Notice their bats. They don't have any. Instead of hats, they wear hard metal round bowls that protect their heads. Watch them, and perhaps you will learn how to wear a dirty cutoff sweatshirt in the dugout instead of a uniform.
Because frankly, the fact that you've won 95 games nine out of the last ten years (and the year you didn't, you won the World Series) is embarrassing.
Football isn't baseball, you'll argue. Football is the ultimate team game, and baseball is more of a stars' game.
Football is more like football. Baseball is more like baseball.
But the one thing all good baseball teams have is the one thing all good football teams have --
Good players.
role players.
Oh. Fuck. I thought you were going to say good players.
Guys who don't need the credit and who don't earn the big money.
People don't realize this, but usually when a team loses, the number one culprit is credit hogs. Credit hogs are polluting our sports teams and they must be stopped. Credit hogs are the poison, and there's only one antidote. His name?
In baseball, David Eckstein is a winning player, much the same as Mike Vrabel is.
I've heard this so many times it must be true. I must be wrong. I give up.
Labels: david eckstein, peter king
