A Winner

Some baseball players are winners and some baseball players are losers. In an era of political correctness, many subscribe to the belief that trying as hard as possible and producing a respectable result is sufficient. That belief is wrong.

Winning and losing are absolutes. You either win or you lose. There is no in-between. There can be no compromise. A nice try is just that---a nice try.

Joe DiMaggio was a winner. Reggie Jackson was a winner. Bob Gibson was a winner. Pete Rose was a winner. And Paul O'Neill was a winner.

Paul O'Neill was concerned with one thing and only one thing when he put on his uniform. He wanted to win. He wanted to do as well as he could, but there was something that was even more important. He wanted his team to win.

It didn't matter if he did well or not. It didn't matter if he got the key hit or a teammate got the key hit. It didn't matter if he made the key play or a teammate made the key play. All that mattered was winning, and that defines Paul O'Neill.

A winner cannot be selfish, because situations arise that require the individual to sacrifice individual glory for the benefit of the team. Advancing a runner from second to third with no outs by hitting a ground ball to the right side is unselfish. Taking a 3-0 pitch in an attempt to draw a base on balls to start or continue a rally is unselfish. Hitting to the opposite field and sacrificing power is unselfish.

When Joe Torre became Yankees manager in 1996, he spoke about O'Neill. "...I was told by a couple of different people how selfish he was. Then I realized that the only thing selfish about him was that he wanted to get a hit every time he got up. He never gave an at-bat away. He never gave up."

Nothing stops a winner and nothing stopped O'Neill. Except for the strike-marred season of 1994, Paul O'Neill never played fewer than 127 games in any season for the Yankees. Injuries were simply another obstacle that had to be overcome. Winners play injured as long as they help the team and an injured Paul O'Neill was usually more effective than a healthy back up. Game 5 of the 1996 World Series typified O'Neill's grit and desire.

The Yankees held a 1-0 lead over the Braves in the bottom of the ninth inning. A younger, perhaps wiser and more intense Joe Torre allowed Andy Pettitte to start his ninth inning of work (how things change in five years).

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