Winners and Losers

One of the great things about being a sports fan is that I can understand politics a lot better.

As Howard Dean ascends to the DNC chairmanship, a move I strongly support, I keep reading about how his campaign "imploded" in the early primaries. It did no such thing.

Dean struck a chord among "Tired of taking it" Democrats, who feel, righteously so, that the national leadership is so afraid of being tarred as "liberal" that they're afraid to take any strong stand on anything, allowed The Enemy to tar them anyway because we don't define ourselves first. But is that enough to choose a candidate on? No. When put to the test, Democratic voters made the rational choice that Kerry was the better candidate to stand against Bush. They were right too. Dean didn't "implode", which implies mass failure on his part. He was simply reviewed against other candidates when it mattered and came up short.

His campaign was revolutionary. Even conservative nutcase Richard Viguirie admired the way it used alternative media to connect with voters. It would be a waste to turn away from his clear ability to organize and galvanize voters. Glad to see the DNC made a sensible choice itself in choosing its leader.

But why do we say he "imploded"? The answer, as in so many things in life, lies in baseball.

The San Francisco Giants' Dustin Hermanson came into a late season game against the Houston Astros with his team leading 3-2. It was the top of the ninth inning, and a win would mean a Giants sweep of the three game series and a strong position to make the post-season wild card. It wasn't to be. Lance Berkman hit a three run homer off Hermanson and the Astros rallied to win.

The next day, a sports page noted that Hermanson threw a "mistake" to Berkman, which led to the Giants' loss. Yet, a replay of the game showed that it was a actually a pretty good pitch, low and to the inside. It was hard to hit, but Berkman did it anyway.

The moral of the story is that sometimes you don't lose, the other guy wins. But Americans don't like to hear this. Loss is generally viewed as something we bring upon ourselves, that winning is as much a matter of choice as circumstances and dynamics. Yet Hermanson has no control over whether or not Berkman could hit that pitch. Many, if not most, batters couldn't. It would probably get most batters out. But Berkman happened to be a good batter who happened to get good wood on the pitch. The Astros won because he won, not because Hermanson lost.

So now Dean gets to loose his fastball in another game where he has more control over the outcome. This more skills contest than competitive game. Personally, I think he'll do quite well.