Gamecocks. Cubs. F1. WNBA. NFL.
10/21/15 • 2 min read
This post was originally posted on October 22, 2015 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site.
I’m a die hard Cubs fan and have been since I was little. My heart has been broken many, many times. And this year, my Cubbies ran into the buzzsaw that is the 2015 New York Mets and got swept in dominating fashion.
This team reminds me of another Chicago sports team — the Michael Jordan-led Chicago Bulls — who couldn’t beat the Detroit Pistons for a number of years before winning six championships. In baseball and today’s sports environment, the window to win is so small. There’s a lot of pressure to win now because everyone else is getting better, too. But the Cubs will continue to improve with a ton of young talent. And that talent is only going to get better.
I enjoyed this season. It was fun to have my Cubs relevant again. And as much as I hate watching them swept out of the playoffs*, I’m confident that we are going to be good for years to come.
So, yes, I’ll give you the traditional Cubs fan refrain is always “Wait ’til next year!” But this year, it’s less lament and more warning. Next year, we’ll be even better.
Go Cubs!
* This year, we did beat the Pirates in a one game playoff and the Cardinals in the NLDS. And those wins were a lot of fun.
7/13/15 • 4 min read
This post was originally posted on June 13, 2015 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site.
I’m more of a college basketball fan, but lately, I’ve been watching some NBA playoff games. And now that the finals are upon us, we get to see the world’s best basketball player in LeBron James against the world’s best shooter in Steph Curry.
There’s a really interesting contrast here. LeBron James was anointed as the next Michael Jordan in high school and some of his games were televised. He was 18 years old when the Clevland Cavaliers drafted him first overall. He was an MVP in Cleveland. Took his talents to Miami and won two championships. This year, he returned home to Cleveland to try and win a title for his hometown. And now he’s led Cleveland to the finals to compete for the organizations’s first NBA championship.
Despite the fact that he was the son of a former NBA player, Steph Curry didn’t have a single major college scholarship offer. He was considered undersized by most programs. He played his college ball at Davidson near Charlotte, NC and made a name for himself in the NCAA tournament. He worked his way through the ranks, proving himself at every step along the way. And he’s now led his Golden State Warriors to the NBA Finals.
One player took a direct route to success. Another took a more circuitous path. And while it makes a great story, it doesn’t really matter. These two world class athletes took different paths. But now, they are in the same place. We tend to focus on the path someone has taken to succeed. But there is rarely a single path to success and that’s a great thing.
Some people are obsessed with corporate paths to success. They downplay the victories for companies they don’t like or understand.
Look at consumer’s perceptions of Apple and Google. Apple fans hate Google’s tendency to give products away and make money via advertising. And Google fans lament the perceived high cost of Apple products and their limited customization. Apple’s been around since the 1980s, grew fast, crashed and then grew into the most valuable company in the world. Google was founded in the 90’s, started fast and continues to expand into new markets. They have taken different paths to success, but they are both successful. Yet, commentators discount their successes because they don’t like or understand the path they have taken.
Other people are obsessed with paths to individual success. Getting into the best colleges. Belonging to the right organizations. Having the right things on their resume. This pressure starts very young. My kids have educational opportunities that didn’t exist for me. Inquiry-style preschools. Magnet elementary schools. Enrichment programs. But the result of this is that everyone is focusing on the “right” path earlier and earlier.
In the design world, I hear these all the time. You’ve got to go to a big market to be successful. You can never grow in an inhouse environment. You’ve got to work at an agency or large design firm before you strike out on your own. Someone actually once told me that I’d never get any where if I didn’t learn Flash. And while some of these bits of advice might be the most direct way to achieve success, it is by no means the only way to become successful.
You can’t completely disregard the path someone takes. It helps shape them and make them the person they’ve become. But we can learn something from Curry and James. Your path doesn’t really matter if you are focused on your goals.
Just because you don’t follow the accepted path doesn’t limit what you can accomplish. And if you do follow the direct path, it doesn’t minimize your accomplishments. Two amazing basketball players – Lebron James and Steph Curry – that have led their teams to the exact same place via two very different paths. But this week, they are both competing for an NBA championship.
Bob Wertz is a creative director, type designer, Ph.D. student and researcher living in Columbia, South Carolina. His blogging journey started in 2008 with a Squarespace hosted blog.
4/23/14 • 2 min read
This post was originally posted on April 24, 2014 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site.
In the early 1980’s, we lived in a slightly mountainous area of North Carolina. And our community had an early version of cable. The cable box on our TV has 13 push buttons, each representing a different channel.
Among those 13 channels were WOR (New York), TBS (Atlanta) and WGN (Chicago). In the early 80’s, all three channels had contracts to carry baseball games. WOR had the Mets, TBS showed the Braves and WGN aired the Cubs games. This is pre-ESPN, so your other option was to catch a random Game of the Week broadcast on one of the networks.
I loved baseball. I’d come home from school and turn on the TV and try to find a baseball game. And more often than not, there would be a Cubs game on. Why? Because Wrigley Field didn’t get lights until 1988. All home games were day games. The Braves and Mets played a bunch of night games so even though I saw some of their games, I didn’t develop the same connection that I did with the Cubs.
(Geographically, it would have made sense for me to be a Braves fan. We weren’t too far from Atlanta. But at the time, they were in the NL West division and played a bunch of night games on the West coast. So those games started after my bed time.)
I fell in love with Wrigley Field, Harry Carey, Ryne Sandberg and “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” during the seventh inning stretch. And then we moved to Chicago and my die-hard-Cubs-fan status was cemented.
Wrigley Field turns 100 this week. And even though Harry Carey is no longer with us, Ryne Sandberg is the manager of the Phillies and Wrigley has lights, I still love my Cubbies.