Winning in Sports Isn’t Everything. It Is Everything

Associated Press

Ichiro on Monday goes from playing for the team with the worst record in major league baseball to playing for the team with the best record.

But that’s not like Rosie the Waitress winning the lottery. Rosie got lucky, good for her. Ichiro’s worked at his craft for his whole life and cashed in on his equity.

Give the younger players a chance, he reportedly said, putting the best spin on past and current seasons of miserable losing seasons brought to us by disappointing player management.

Ichiro now gets a chance to be on a winning team, to play in the league playoffs and maybe the World Series on what’s been called “the best team money can buy.”

Give our Seattle fans credit for showing they are a class act. They gave Ichiro a standing ovation at his first at-bat in Yankee pinstripes.

Sports and baseball aren’t metaphors for life. Sports is a business based on revenue and expenses and returns on investment. Be wary when qualities that we might seek and find in real life — truth, honor, character — are talked about in any business  (“We make money the old-fashioned way... We earn it.”)

Penn State and coach Joe Paterno branded their business of college football as an embodiment of character and honor, thereby making the uncovering of years of child molestation and cover ups all the more disgustingly squalid. But they get to keep their football business by paying a fine and having all the games they won during the years of shame wiped off the record books. Like banks and bankers, they get to play again.

After all, it’s not just a game.

--Mike Sato