When Bad Teams Happen to Good Players

It's a busy time in the sporting world. As baseball heads toward the playoffs, records are being broken, careers are ending. Football is cruising along at the pro and college and high school levels. The NBA is abuzz with the news that Michael Jordan is coming back yet again, and the NHL is underway, although I, like most of the country, won't care a bit about it until the playoffs start next April. The headliners and big names of the moment include Jordan, Cal Ripken, Tony Gwynn, Rickey Henderson, and Barry Bonds, among others, and it struck me that there is one thing that links them all together. They all play for teams that won't be playing in the postseason this year. Not only that, but Gwynn, Henderson, Ripken, and perhaps even MJ are playing for teams for whom they are pretty much the only drawing card. Not including Rickey, of course; Rickey is the only one who shows up to watch Rickey, and he'll be the first to tell you that.

It's kinda depressing when you think about it. There won't be one last run through October for Cal's Orioles or Tony's Padres, not that there were many to begin with. Ripken won a world championship his second year, but that was it. There were two trips to the ALCS in the mid-90s, but Jeffrey Maier and Tony Fernandez kiboshed any hopes of more World Series memories for Number 8. As for Gwynn, there were two one-sided World Series losses, first to the '84 Tigers and then the '98 Yankees, and a first-round playoff exit in 1996. Bonds has never been to a World Series, and most of the world holds him completely accountable for that, but hey, who thought Sid Bream could score from second on a single? The difference, perhaps, with this is that the world roots for Cal and Tony, they root against Barry. They feel bad that Gwynn never won the big one, but they're happer than hell that Barry never has, and they probably wish Rickey never did. Tony Gwynn, meet Ernie Banks, meet Ted Williams. They never even made a World Series, so perhaps Tony has been blessed more than we would think.

Still, it does seem that too many of the "bad guys" (I just keep throwing Rickey as an example, cuz it's just so easy) win titles, and not enough of the "good guys" win titles. Leo Durocher had the famous line, "Nice guys finish last", and maybe that's true for some, but it doesn't seem right. You work hard your entire career, bang out hits and home runs, craft a Hall of Fame-worthy resume, but you get surrounded with nothing but scrubs and you wind up watching the Luis Sojos of the world win it all (nothing against Sojo, but he's no Tony Gwynn).

This extends to all sports at all levels. Karl Malone and John Stockton will likely finish their careers as Utah's greatest stars since Brigham Young, but no rings. We hear all the time about good kids with high GPAs and character sheets with accomplishments that make us all jealous and a little guilty that we didn't do more than drink during our college years, and yet they wind up on teams that go 2-9 or 3-8. If you're of truly good character and ability, you might get another shot at winning in the NFL, but not always. Dan Fouts... helluva QB, great stats, good guy, no Super Bowl appearances, let alone rings. Hell, the city of Buffalo has a soft spot in its aching sports heart for all of those Bills and all of those Sabres who came oh so close to the holy grail, only to watch a field goal sail wide right or a questionable goal call.

The best of characters stand up to the losing with their heads held high and a no quit attitude. I have seen two examples of this so far this football season. First, in the college ranks, where my Susquehanna University Crusaders are unfortunately threatening to flip my 8-2 prediction upside down; they're halfway there at this point, 1-4. It's frustrating to say the least; they haven't had a season like this in 16 years, but they're not fighting with themselves. Sure, there is an occasional scruff between one SU player and an opponent who may have grabbed or shoved a little too long, but that can just be chalked up to the heat of battle. Meanwhile, I spend my Friday nights calling Shippensburg High School football games. The Greyhounds, to put it mildly, are not that good. In fact, tonight was the first chance I got to practice my touchdown call in three weeks because it had been that long since they had scored a point. They're 0-6, probably headed for 0-10, but they just go about their business week after week and hope they can get it all right long enough to squeeze a win.

And what if they did? "Feel-good" stories like that unfortunately don't transcend well when you're 1-9 instead of 0-10, it's just the way our society is. The real "feel-good" story for them is to go from 0-10 to 10-0, or at least into a contender. But maybe we just don't look for all the real "feel-good" stories out there, and instead we focus on the most unbelievable, the ones that make us feel the best. How about instead we settle for the much more plentiful ones out there that involve good guys getting what they deserve, getting something positive for all of the hard work they put into their chosen sports. I always consider the little victories in life to be just as important as the major victories, because the little victories happen much more often, and it's the little victories that get you through your day or week or life.

Now that I think about it, maybe all those players I mentioned before (except MJ, of course) have more than enough of those more minor, more underappreciated "feel good" stories in their memories to be able to deal better with the lack of a ring on their finger. Perhaps.