One More Chance

You can’t beat the Olympics for poignancy, for pathos, for drama. One chance. That’s all you get for gold. A body of work means nothing. As opposed to professional baseball, a sport for which it’s all in the body of work, and individual failures can and usually are overlooked, especially if your team manages to be successful.

Never were these truths more evident than last night, when strange mishaps befell favorites in the 100-meter hurdles and 400 meter run while a decision on a start value in the balance beam saved gold for one of my favorites in these Beijing Games. And, thousands of miles away, the Mets won another with an assist from one of their formerly vilified relievers who got still one more chance.

I almost cried for Shawn Johnson as it became evident that the little pixie would win her first gold. For a few minutes there, I thought that the beautiful Nastia Liukin would edge Shawn out again in the balance beam competition.

To be honest, Liukin’s performance looked better to me. But it didn’t carry the difficulty value of Shawn’s. So Shawn finally took gold after winning three silvers. With gold for both U.S. roommates, they can now draw lots for who gets to use the shower first. Now there’s a picture.

But even if Shawn had fallen right on her pretty little head, her failure wouldn’t compare to that of the favorite in the 100-meter hurdles, Loli Jones, whose heel clipped the penultimate hurdle hard enough to make her stumble, thus enabling the other young women to pass her by.

She said later that she knew she had the lead, and she was going hard, and the hurdles were coming back to her so fast. One can only imagine how quickly those hurdles were coming to her as she sped over them like Mercury on mescaline.

There was the 400 meter, and a great start for Sanya Richards that may have brought on a fateful cramp. Whatever the cause, it spelled gold and silver for two others but just bronze for Sanya. And weeping in the wings as the full realization of her misfortune overwhelmed her.

There was the renowned Chinese hurdler who had been regaled by his countrymen for months before straining his Achilles so badly that he couldn’t make it much past the starting blocks, producing still another poignant moment for the world and NBC.

One chance every four years. Most competitors get a chance at two Olympics, three at the most if they are lucky enough to catch that first one at an early age. Or if they happen to be named Dara Torres, who at 41 has defied all the rules for some time now.

For most of the athletes in track and field, gymnastics, swimming and many of the other sports contested at the Games, they get one shot at fame, and, if they’re lucky, fortune.

I’m quite sure we’ll be seeing quite a lot of all the gold medal winners in the years to come, not just Mr. Phelps, Ms. Liukin and Ms. Johnson. They’ll peer at us from newspapers, the sides of buses and in TV ads hawking everything from slippers to perfume. (In fact, for the roommates at least, I’m quite looking forward to it).

But we shouldn’t get too overwrought about the losers’misfortunes either. They’ve enjoyed the process of getting to these Olympic Games, I’m quite sure. They haven’t enjoyed every single practice maybe, but in the aggregate, through all the time and money and injuries, they’ve had the time of their life. In fact, for almost all of them, it is their life.

And it’s a pretty good life. It’s most certainly a clean life and usually a simple, uncluttered life, one in which money becomes secondary. Most of the good ones hold a job, of course, but they never let it occupy their thoughts too much. It never becomes an obsession. If an employer asks for overtime, they soon find something else. Or, if nothing else presents itself, they can always become personal trainers.

Of course, they’ll never become millionaires, as they would have if their specialty had been baseball. In baseball, athletes are judged on their body of work. Through 162 games, year after year, they get the opportunity to either excel or fall flat on their faces.

For my favorite team, the Mets, their relief pitchers are the perfect examples for the multitude of opportunities athletes can truly get. For Aaron Heilman, Scott Schoeneweis, Duaner Sanchez, Pedro Feliciano and Joe Smith, the opportunities keep coming.

More often than not, they fail. But, through a curious mixture of management and luck, each one of them isn’t allowed to fail long enough to lose the game. So, in a most curious way, I guess they have been successful. After all, the Mets are still in first place in the NL East, even if Jerry Manuel is looking a little grayer every time I see him.

Last night we got to see still another reliever the Mets added to their game of musical chairs in the person of Luis Ayala. Luis was magnificent last night, which means he’ll be terrible next time out if the Mets fortunes hold to the same pattern.

Scot Schoeneweis was Manuel’s closer of choice last night. And he provided a most uneventful ninth inning. Whether he’ll get to see another ninth inning soon is questionable, of course, but he’ll undoubtedly get some more opportunities, for better or for worse. As will each of the other Mets downtrodden relievers.

But as long as the book of charms Manuel is consulting seems to be working, I hesitate to complain. If form holds, this relief corps will fail as often as they succeed in their mission, but when they do fail, it won’t be a long-lasting failure. Jerry won’t have it.

One thing is sure though. Unlike these Olympians, they’ll get at least one more chance, and probably one more than we’d like.

Just the Right Touch

As this is written, I recollect Michael Phelps touching that wall .01 seconds ahead of the Serb and Nastia Liukin doing more things right than all her competitors. Of course, in Olympic competition, there are ample opportunities to witness athletes reaching back for more, calling on reserves they knew they had because they'd done it before, not because it's easy but because they want to win.

Given the opportunity, these types of competitors will win. In professional baseball, the type of effort I'm talking about is witnessed very seldom on a seasonal basis but you can see individual efforts that approach a true hundred percent once or twice each night, sometimes by great players but sometimes by those lesser talented guys who are just tired of losing, or tired of seeing their names in the papers in a negative light.

In 162 games, the duration of the baseball season, you really can't expect to see that kind of effort every night. You CAN expect to see it more than once in a while though. You DO see it practically all the time from some of the greats; I'm thinking of the Mariano Riveras of the world, the Ernie Bankses, those players who really love the game itself and revel in their ability to play it.

More often than not, though, in baseball, you see guys going through the motions, and you hope that will be enough to carry your team through July and August and get you into a position to win in September. The good teams manage the situation with finesse and just the delicate touch needed to carry 25 different personalities to the promised land, which is the playoffs in baseball.

Just the right touch. In 162 games, it means having that touch just a few more times than the opposition. It’s the touch that keeps good players playing well, and great players playing great. And sometimes, in just the right situation, it’s the touch that gets mediocre players to play over their heads.

Does Joe Girardi have it? Joe Torre? Jerry Manuel? Yeah, I think they probably do. Did Willie Randolph have it? I don’t think he did. At least, not in the time he had to demonstrate it.

That touch can sometimes be interpreted as heavy-handedness. When Jerry Manuel honestly talked about having to do something to win games after Monday night’s excruciating loss to the Pirates, even proposing to use starters in relief situations, it appeared heavy-handed to his relief staff, a staff that seemed to be sleepwalking for quite a long time, a staff that was proving to be one of the worst in baseball, a staff that didn’t seem phased by their mounting ERA’s or even the team’s mounting numbers in the loss column.

But they DID take notice of Manuel’s comments. They took considerable offense. They had a meeting with raised voices, the loudest voice ironically being one of the worst offenders, one of the veterans, one of the guys who was successful as recently as a few years ago, but hadn’t done much last year in the Mets collapse, and had done perhaps less as this year’s team was falling into oblivion.

Manuel’s comments were made Monday night. Since then, they’ve won four in a row, and the relief staff has never been better. They had every opportunity to lose Tuesday night’s game but Pedro Feliciano did the job. On Wednesday, they weren’t needed. On Thursday, after a shaky start by Joe Smith, Duaner Sanchez saved the day. And last night, Sanchez and Heilman triumphed again.

It doesn’t matter that the teams they beat were Washington and Pittsburgh. Wasn’t it Pittsburgh who beat them Monday night? Wasn’t it Pittsburgh who rose from the dead against a relief staff too bored with itself to appear to be even trying?

Just the right touch. Are those relievers still peeved with Manuel? Probably. I don’t care. If it takes a left-handed attack on their self-esteem to get them going, that’s not Jerry Manuel’s fault. The Mets as this is written are back in first place again.

It’s very difficult to say what that right touch is exactly. It’s the touch that got Delgado going, that got Reyes playing smarter, that got Perez pitching to his ability, that got more players to play hard, to have fun, to take pride in itself and start winning games.

The right touch; it’s ideas like roles for the pitching staff (until the relievers seemed not to want ANY role), like rest for some of his core veterans, like staying with hot bats, like giving his team a lift with minor-leaguers showing promise. But that’s not all it is either.

It’s visualization too, as Manuel speaks of another long run of wins he feels his team can put together, or a run of good at-bats that Delgado can put together. It’s praise out of nowhere for deserving guys like Beltran and Reyes. It’s praise such as that that gets Reyes to snag that ball in the hole last night; that gets Beltran to charge that ground ball through the infield and fire home to nail that Pirate at the plate.

The right touch. It’s all of the above and probably some other things too, more ethereal qualities such as inspiring confidence just in the thoughtful way he answers questions, or inspiring loyalty in the way he rewards deserving players and sits the rest. It’s a commitment to winning with guys who will get him there, not just filling out a lineup card with guys who’ve been there before.

Thoughtfulness, flexibility, sincerity, commitment….and just the right touch, usually applied at just the right time.

It’s a long season. There’ll probably be times when even this manager may seem to be sleeping, as I’ve thought on a few occasions this year, occasions when he could have walked a batter to face a pitcher, for example.

More often than not though, Manuel will do just what’s needed…. with just the right touch.