Legal Commentary

Coffee's For Closers

By Big Tent Democrat

Reading and commenting about this Scott Lemieux article about baseball managers and how much they matter (not much generally imo), I started looking for Bill James' writings on managers (specifically on Casey Stengel), and ran across this Joe Posnanski piece:

So, last night, I was doing what I often do … I was reading some old Bill James stuff in his wonderfully written but somewhat awkwardly named This Time Let’s Not Eat the Bones. The book is a collection of excerpts and essays and thoughts from the Baseball Abstracts along with several other magazine articles he wrote.[. . . A]s often happens, I came across a paragraph that set my mind racing. In this case, the paragraph is about baseball managers and the general concept that nice guys finish last[:]

“Every good manager effectively threatens his players with professional extermination if they don’t give him the best effort they are capable of giving; Casey Stengel, Billy Martin, White Herzog and Earl Weaver are masters at it, as was Durocher. These are not nice people. They are manipulative, cunning SOBs, hard and crass and they drink too much. Nice guys finish last because a nice guy is not going to coldly exploit the insecurities of his players. Nice guys finish last because a nice guy is not going to kick an old friend out of his comfortable sinecure the minute that old friend becomes a milli-second too slow on the fastball.”

[MORE . . ]

Now, the first thing that strikes me about this is the first thing that strikes me about everything Bill writes: It just make sense. Being a good baseball manager — being a good coach of any kind — often demands a very different approach, even the opposite approach, of being a good person. [. . .] Here was a case where humanity and success clashed; iand it’s hardly the only case. “Nice guys finish last“ isn’t entirely true — Bill points this out in his essay — but there is truth in it, and the truth comes from the harsh reality that very often when you are trying to be successful the ”nice thing to do,“ is exactly the wrong approach.

Or as Alec Baldwin said in Glengarry Glen Ross:

”That watch costs more than your car. I made $970,000 last year. How much you make? … You see pal, that’s who I am. And you’re nothing. Nice guy? I don’t give a (bleep). Good father? (Bleep) you! Go home and play with your kids. You wanna work here, close!“

Coffee's for closers. Most people take this to be some indication of a "survival of the fittest" ethos that brings out the best in merit and result. But is that really true? Certainly the performance of Wall Street and the Establishment Media in the past decade puts the lie to that idea. So what do we mean by closing? The Galtian myth of meritocracy is surely not it.

More likely, it is gaming the game. Sports is an interesting comparison. Generally speaking, we think of sports as a true meritocracy. But surely it isn't in a pure sense. Consider Roger Clemens or Lance Armstrong. Or even the late Bobby Thomson (the sign stealing by Durocher's Giants.)

But on a more basic level than that, even sports is imbued with politics, culture and expectation (see, e.g., the black QB issue.) Podnanski praises James for his "knack of looking at things — even the most common, every day things — like they are new to him."

I think the whole concept of "closing" - of "merit" and "success" - should be looked at in a new way. I'll draw on another cliche to drive home the point - "he was born on 3rd base and thinks he hit a triple." Much of life is an exercise in this delusion, on all levels. We should take another look at it.

Speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on September 01, 2010 (boomark / email).