Winning isn't Everything

by Carole Anne Scott

Acceptance of diversity is an essential hallmark and a benchmark of our behavior in the workplace these days. To prove that point, the international, gigantic company for which I work, placed a poster in our foyer that listed all the different, seeming diametrically opposed things that people could be. It insisted that we live in harmony, despite our differences. Among the opposing categories mentioned was that of (you guessed it) Red Sox fan and Yankee fan.

As a lifelong Red Sox fan, I must admit that it was always difficult being in the company of those who rooted for the team hailing from the "house that Babe built." Yankee fans were never merely content with winning; they had an obnoxious swagger to them, an outrageously proud demeanor, a cocky arrogance, an assurance that no matter what, they would prevail. To someone like me who had been taught to walk humbly, this acting up was nothing short of bullying, boastful behavior, bordering on the sacrilegious.

As any true sports fan knows, rooting for one team and against another can get rather heated. So it was with our office fans. One lone Yankee supporter stood out above all the Fenway Faithful. Company posters notwithstanding, after the devastating 2003 Red Sox loss to those Yankees in Game 7 of the American League pennant race, many members of our Red Sox Nation would have been very content to run him out of town on a rail (not necessarily an Amtrak one). Even the Yankees' loss in the ensuing World Series wasn't enough to appease the anger of some over the many insults that he had ignominiously heaped upon us.

This year he started in on us again, right from the beginning of spring training. His torturous comments could be heard ringing through our corridors, all of them assuring us of yet another year culminating in a heartbreaking Red Sox defeat, all of them promising yet another year of overpowering Yankee victories. In response, we Fenway Faithful hunkered down in dugout bunkers of our own making, safe in our perpetual dream that "Wait 'til next year" would indeed this year finally translate into that long-sought-after World Series win. During the pre-playoff period in early September, Mr. Yankee launched into his usual diatribe when all of us were assembled for a company luncheon, appropriately for him, at Maggiano's, which boasts of New York style Italian chain cuisine. Someone had made the comment that "Winning isn't everything," to which he, in typical Steinbrenner fashion, insisted, "Of course it is. Only losers like you think that it isn't."

Political correctness aside, I couldn't let the comment go unchallenged. Rising to the highest heights my personal soapbox could provide, I launched into a diatribe of my own. "Losing is really worthwhile," I countered, adding, "It is in the losing that all life's really essential lessons are found. Winning makes you vain and complacent. Losing teaches you more than winning ever could. It makes you smarter, stronger, and ready to face anything life dishes out. It leads you to look within yourself and also outside yourself to God for strength. Mixing metaphors, I went on to add, "It is never about whether you win or lose; it is always about how you play the game. That holds true in sports, in business, in life. At the end of the day, you have to be able to look yourself in the mirror and know that you've walked away from whatever you've faced with your integrity intact."

I was on a roll, speaking like an oracle, not even looking at my audience, but beyond the faces before me as I added, "No Yankee fan will ever know the joy that we Red Sox fans will experience when we finally win this thing. It will be a joy beyond measure, one comparable to the finding of the proverbial pearl of great price; it will be a taste of heaven on earth. The rarity of it will make it all the sweeter. It will be a vindication and a metaphoric redemption. This will be one for all the underdogs, for all those who live in hope, but without the fulfillment of their dreams. This victory will belong to the ages."

I knew all this because people like me had grown up with a Red Sox team that was forever in the proverbial "cellar," tenth out of ten in what then was the American League, no added divisions existing at the time. The games we attended with our parents were fun because they were baseball games, not because there was ever any real hope of our winning.

All of that changed in the magical year of 1967. Sometime in early winter at a high school Catholic Press conference, I met Carl Yastrzemski, the featured speaker, and got his autograph. "Maybe this will be the year," I said to the man himself, more out of ingrained habit than out of true belief that it could be. "You know;" Yaz answered, "I think it could be."

Little did we really know that our cellar team, of which he was the captain, was about to take us on the ride of our young lives. Baseball became life for us that summer as our "Come from behind Kids," the "Impossible Dream Team," won victory after victory, making it to the World Series (no wild cards and no playoffs existed then). George Scott, Mike Andrews, Tony Conigliaro, Rico Petrocelli, Yaz, et al. became our heroes. Time and time again, they proved to us that it truly never is over until it's over.

One magical `67 summer's afternoon, our Mom, the greatest fan of them all, had taken us to see a doubleheader. The Sox had won the first game, but were way behind in the second. Thinking of the huge gap in the score and mindful of the dinner waiting to be cooked and of the train ride home to Canton, Mom made us leave. As we walked over the bridge leading to Kenmore Square, we heard the deafening roar rising from our devoted fellow fans who had just witnessed a grand-slam homerun. The Sox went on to sweep the day.

Of course, they would not ultimately prevail against (you guessed it - the St. Louis Cardinals); they lost in Game 7, but we didn't mind. We couldn't mind. They had given us a ride so worth the taking, and they had played their hearts out. That's all any true fan could ever ask.When the Sox made it to the Show again in 1975, I called upon my sainted mother and Uncle Lundy, both recently departed, praying to them to make a miracle, asking them to beg God to let our Sox win. It still wasn't time though.

Nor was it the time moment in 1986 as heartsick, I watched that infamous ball roll through Bill Buckner's legs. My elevenyear-old friend Aaron was staying with me that evening. An avowed Mets fan (I still haven't figured out why), he was ecstatic. To this day, I marvel at my self-restraint and my ability to forgive all as I listened to him cheering at the defeat of my beloved BoSox. The pain was unbearable.

It was no less so last year as I joined my sister Alane, my nephew Michael, and our longtime friend Alice in watching that fateful Game 7 against the Yankees. Driving up to Acton from a company function, I had dared to be optimistic as the Sox had gone out to an early lead. Sadly we saw all that evaporate in the despair of Grady Little's decision to leave Pedro in too long.

Lying on the floor, in anguish, my sister wailed, "God must be a Yankees' fan." When we lost, my nephew abruptly clicked the TV off, unable to face the jubilation of the New York demons who had now tormented our family for four generations. Almost in tears, Alane looked at her beloved son and said, "I'm sorry for making you a Red Sox fan."

Regaining our composure, we both laughed at such foolishness. As I headed down the driveway, we uttered once again those proverbial words of hope handed down to us from our ancestors, "Wait `til next year!"

In the closing days of the 2004 season, as I walked around the office, l recited to anyone who would listen to them, the words of that "Impossible Dream" theme song from my now long-ago youth: "To dream the impossible dream; to beat the unbeatable foe; to bear with unbearable sorrow; to run where the brave dare not go." Our 2004 Sox had done all of that and had done it so very well. We even had our own Don Quixote in Curt Schilling, pitching though hurt, continuing on, despite his bleeding ankle. For me, he became the emblem of true grit, the poster child for all that is brave and all that is good.

For a complete blow-by-blow description of how the 2004 Sox finally overcame all that anguish, please see Mary E. Sullivan's excellent article on page $. For purposes of this editorial, let me just say that I was right about how it feels to win after many years of losing. As Alane and I traveled into town for this year's Red Sox World Series victory parade, our hearts were filled with the most incredible joy. Any sibling rivalry was erased in the shared happiness of this great moment in our history. We had won and all was finally right with the world. We had won without the spoiled brat behavior of an Arod trying to knock the ball out of the first baseman's glove, without the cruelty of a Steinbrenner who doesn't allow loss, but only victory, without the arrogance and bravado that says winning is all that matters. This victory was for those who dare to hope, even when it seems foolish to believe. It was proof that miracles can happen. It again said that when you play with courage and heart, you've done your best, and your best, no matter what the outcome, is always good enough.

Just this past month, I was privileged to attend a prayer service at Fontbonne Academy in Milton. Sr. Catherine (formerly known as Sr. Flavia), the school's first principal, was speaking about a long-ago assembly where she had told her young charges to play fairly in their basketball games, to make sure that their behavior was ladylike and that it brought credit to their fledging school. She had assured them that "It is not whether you win or lose, but how you play the game."

They left her stirring words only to encounter their gym teacher, who evidently had not been trained by the good Sisters of St. Joseph. He informed them that an elbow extended here and a foot well-positioned there in a place to trip the opponent would be good strategic techniques. Needless to say, the girls were confused by the conflicting advice. Sister feels that they straightened it all out. They must have because by the time I arrived at the school, about twelve years later, the gym teacher too was a Sister of St. Joseph, and we a11 learned how to play the game.

Meanwhile, back at the office, undeterred, our Mr. Yankee is at it again. He swaggers around our cubicles like a malevolent presence, assuring us that next year will be the worst ever in BoSox history as the team will be forced to surrender so many of its key players to free agency that it will no longer be viable. "You'll be losers again," he shouts with glee.

I guess he just doesn't get it. We've always been winners and always will be, just because of how we've played the game.