TFT: Mitchell: Winning the World Series-Determination, Grit and Luck

Pages found among the desperate ruins of Wallachia..."Victory of Blood: The Count Benigno Way”.

A similar storyline will emerge if the Yankees win in seven games.  In that case, Sabathia will be the one with grit and determination, but the Yankees will be hailed again for their ability to bounce back “as they have done all season long”, as well as inevitably, their drive and understanding that anything less than a World Championship wasn’t good enough for their fans or their city. In either case Joe Girardi will be lauded for his confidence and willingness to stick with his three man pitching rotation in the face of criticism.

If the Phillies manage to beat Pettitte and Sabathia in New York, Girardi’s stubborn refusal to be flexible and insistence on using only three starters throughout the whole post-season will be at fault, but the larger story will be the determination of the Philadelphia Phillies, their unwillingness to quit and the importance of momentum.

All of these explanations are, of course nonsense, based on seeing causalities where they don’t exist and making assumptions about behavior and motivations that simply are not true. Is it even remotely plausible that the team that loses will have done so because they didn’t try hard enough, or that the team that wins will have done so because they were more determined?  Baseball players at the Major League level are all determined, hard working and possess extraordinary drive, otherwise they wouldn’t be there. Nobody works all year, and in many cases all their lives, to get to the World Series and then stops caring.  Even when it looks that way (Robinson Cano) it is not the case.