Is Winning Necessary?

In the world of sporting events, the goal is almost always to win.  A tie is like kissing your sister, as the saying goes.  At the end of a season, there is one team celebrating and everyone else says, “Wait ‘til next year!”

But does that have to be the case? I ask this because of a couple of recent comments made on ESPN.  One involved the definition of “success” regarding the United States and the World Cup.  In looking to the future of US involvement, one persistent question has been how long until the United States has a credible chance of actually winning the Cup, instead of losing or tying most of our games.  Some thought we were decades away, some thought we had a shot at winning in 2018.  But one person asked whether it was necessary for the US to threaten to win in order to maintain American interest in soccer.  Would it be enough to continue to improve at “the beautiful game” while allowing European and South American countries to dominate the knockout rounds.

The second comment was one involving the Oakland Athletics, possessors of the best record in the American League.  Someone, before they traded for All-Star pitcher Jeff Samardzija, asked if this was finally going to be the year when Moneyball produced a World Series championship, or would the A’s fail again as usual.

Given that the entire point of Moneyball was that trying to buy a championship would cost you a lot of money and not guarantee success, the question is absurd.  Moneyball is a more sophisticated version of what was practiced by Minnesota Twins owner Calvin Griffith in the 1970’s, namely keeping the payroll just large enough to be credible and rely on the visiting team’s stars to draw attendance.  Only the Yankees can afford to play for a World Series title every year; if the A’s tried they’d go bankrupt quickly.  Moneyball means you marshal your resources and find efficiencies to exploit over 162 games, and then cross your fingers in the post season.

The A’s have had bad breaks in the post season, literally.  In 2001 their cleanup hitter, Jermaine Dye, broke his leg in game four of the five game playoff series with the Yankees.  The game before that Derek Jeter had thwarted Jeremy Giambi’s attempt to score on the freakiest play in the history of baseball.  The result was the Yankees came back from losing the first two games to take the series.  Other A’s playoff teams have suffered similar fates.

The architect of Moneyball, Billy Beane, has famously said, “My S#!t doesn’t work in the post-season.”

But are the A’s failures just because they have only won two consecutive division titles with the sixth lowest payroll in baseball?  It’s not like they are going to catch the record held by the Yankees for most World Series titles.  The A’s are built for the marathon regular season; expecting them to also be able to sprint to the finish line of a 100 yard dash is maybe expecting too much.

Other sports figures are haunted by not winning.  Danica Patrick has won one Indy Car race but so far has failed to win as NASCAR.  ESPN talking heads often talk about how she has to win a race, but honestly how many career NASCAR drivers have never won a race?  If you consistently finish in or near the top ten, should you quit just because you never finish first?

Another female athlete who “never won” was Anna Kournakova, although in her case this isn’t true.  Kournakova won two Grand Slam titles in doubles, two WTA Championships, and was ranked #1 in doubles in 1999.  But all anyone remembers is that she never won a singles title.  One ESPN commentator referred to her as essentially a model who pretended to play tennis.  She was ranked #8 in the world in 2000; I doubt if Giselle Bunchen picked up a tennis racket she could crack the top 80,000.

I can’t find the quote, but I seem to recall a female tennis player who retired young (Kimiko Date?) because, as she put it, she was tired of being a “career quarterfinalist.”  But if you are a top twenty tennis player, traveling around, making a living playing a sport, shouldn’t making it to the second week of most majors be enough?

I don’t have an answer to this question.  I think the answer for the US Men’s Soccer team is borne of necessity; you aren't going to contend anytime soon, so doing your best will have to be enough.  Clearly the A’s, with their trade for an all-star starting pitcher, are all in for the short run.  But maybe they’d be better off being a small market team who bowed out in the first round of the playoffs.