Plugging Along

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When I saw this photo I instantly thought of another Yankee great, Billy Martin, in the middle of a fight with another Yankee great, Reggie Jackson in the 1977 season. (There are a lot of Yankee greats).

You see, the two men hated one another and after Billy thought Reggie was dogging it on a fly ball he yanked Reginald from the game, in the middle of the inning, by sending Paul Blair out there to replace him.

"Don't be mad at me, Reggie," Blair supposedly said, "Billy sent me."

Well, Billy was plenty mad and by the time Reggie got to the dugout Billy was frothing at the mouth and wanted to fight Reggie.

"Are you crazy?" Reggie supposedly asked, "Look at the size of me, I'll kill you if we fight!"

"You're gonna' have to kill me to win the fight," Billy allegedly responded.

And there's little in Billy's background to doubt that was true.

I know some people like that.

Just determined people who aren't going to take 'NO' for an answer, and I'm thinking that Babe said it in the most positive of lights.

Just keep going, even when the odds are stacked against you.

And belief in your own abilities is a determining factor in a lot of situations where the outcome is a bit hairy. I've always liked that sort of dogged aggressiveness.

"Which one of you losers is gonna' finish second," Larry Bird said as he walked into the locker room at the 3-point shooting competition back when the big stars played in such games.

He wasn't bragging. That was exactly how it worked out. He won by a lot. No one remembers who finished second.

"I'll see you in the winner's circle," Wayne Gretzky once said as he answered a reporters questions before a big Game 7 back when he was with Edmonton.

Later that night Gretzky scored the winning goal after coming down the wing. The goalie who got burned on the play said that he had read the angle and figured that the only way Gretzky could possibly score was if he put it under his arm pit with the puck on it's side.

He thought about all that as Gretzky bore down.

Then he felt his shirt flutter and the crowd roared as the light went on.

At the post game interview someone asked Gretzky where he had put the puck.

"On end, under his arm pit."

See you in the Winner's circle.

Just keep plugging along.

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