Tag: familiarity

Going to the Well

On the afternoon of July 13, 2002, the door to the visiting bullpen swung open at Jacobs Field in Cleveland, Ohio. Through that door trotted Mariano Rivera.

Rivera had one mission: Pitch a clean inning to lock up the game for the New York Yankees.

But that would prove to be quite the challenge.

For the Cleveland batters Rivera would face had already picked up on something from prior games. All of Rivera’s pitches — his signature cut fastballs — were ending up in the same spot, just off home plate.

As the inning progressed, a litany of lefthanded hitters trudged to the plate and dug their heels into the back edge of the batter’s box.

The batters were too far back to reach pitches on the opposite side of home plate. But it didn’t matter. They knew Rivera’s wouldn’t throw anything out there. All they’d see is the cut fastball on their half of the plate. And they’d be primed to hit it.

Soon enough, Cleveland had loaded the bases. With his team trailing by one run, journeyman Bill Selby strode to the plate.

Selby took aim at several cut fastballs, driving them into the stands in foul territory. It was clear he had Rivera’s cutter timed up.

If Rivera had thrown just one pitch to the other side of the plate, Selby would have been toast. But instead, Rivera kept throwing the cutter, harder and harder.

Ultimately, Selby’s persistence paid off. He lined a cut fastball over the right-field wall for a game-winning grand slam. The Yankees trudged off the field in disbelief while Cleveland fans and players celebrated.

Rivera had gone to the well one too many times.

Mariano Rivera had already built a name for himself before that fateful day in Cleveland.

He had guided the Yankees to four world titles, won a World Series MVP award, and been selected to five All-Star teams.

But after that defeat, he seemed to get even better.

For Rivera started to mix a straight fastball into his arsenal. A pitch he could splash over the other side of home plate if batters tried to cheat on his cut fastball.

Soon, it was virtually impossible to beat Rivera.

By the time he retired in 2013, Rivera had saved 652 games — with about two-thirds of those saves coming after the Cleveland debacle. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame unanimously the first year he was eligible. And he’s widely considered the greatest closer of all time.

Still, even with all that sustained excellence, the great Mariano Rivera had to learn to adapt. For if he’d kept going to the well — firing that cut fastball to the same spot, game after game — eventually other teams would have ambushed him the way Cleveland did. His performance would have declined, and his legacy would have been incomplete.

The fact that Rivera had the open-mindedness to change his approach while at the peak of his game says as much about him as any of the accolades that he racked up. It transformed him from a ballplayer into an example worth following.

Why keep going to the well?

Why keep reverting to the same old pattern, over and over?

It doesn’t make much sense.

After all, we know that perfection is unattainable. If one of the greatest baseball players ever can come up short now and then, why do we expect any better of a fate in our endeavors?

And if insanity is doing the same thing over and over, our affinity for routine might be nothing short of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

So, why do we ignore these inexorable truths? Blame two F’s — fear and familiarity.

We fear making a critical error by venturing into the unknown. So, we stick to the familiar, expecting predictably cozy results.

The irony is palpable.

For not only do we often find such assuredness lacking when we follow this approach. But we also are left unprepared when things inevitably go off-script.

This is bad enough when it befalls us individually. But if the issue is societal, it can be downright disastrous.

Recent history is littered with instances of slow and clunky responses to an emergent threat. A blossoming pandemic and a spiraling inflation crisis are but two examples of this.

We went to the well of familiar approaches in each case, only to watch the threat linger and intensify, strangling us slowly like a boa constrictor.

As this has occurred, fear has set in. Certainty has faded away. And a sustainable path forward has proven harder to reach.

The old well has gone dry. It’s time to change things up.

About a year into my news career, a new face joined our newsroom.

Like me, the new hire worked behind the scenes, in an off-air role. Unlike me, he had plenty of big-city news experience.

Things started off amicable but quickly deteriorated.

For the new hire wanted our small, local news operation to focus coverage on developments in the Middle East. And I wanted to cover every arrest and car wreck in the metro area.

The best solution would probably have been a compromise — a mix of Middle East coverage from the network feed and local reporting from our journalists in-house.

But I was too hard-headed to acquiesce to such an agreement. Instead, I kept going back to the well, demanding that local news stay local.

A power struggle ensued, and I emerged victorious. The new hire eventually left the station, and I continued building the nightly newscasts the way I always had.

Looking back, I’m not filled with satisfaction at this development. I’m overcome by shame.

I wish that I had handled the situation better. That I’d been open-minded enough to listen to what my erstwhile co-worker was saying. That I’d leaned in to calls for change in an industry that was all about the unexpected.

Instead, I went back to the well. I demanded to do things the way they had been done before. And all that left me with was a divided newsroom and burned bridges.

In the years since that incident, I’ve tried to be more open-minded. When I’ve found myself going to the well, I’ve asked myself why I was doing so. And if I don’t have a solid answer, I’ve shifted my approach.

There’s nothing preventing us all from doing this. Nothing but ourselves.

So, let’s resolve to be better. To be shrewder. To be more open-minded.

Let’s not allow the tried-and-true to tie us in knots.

It’s time to lean into a fresh approach, and the wonders it unlocks.

On Heroes

Heroes.

From our earliest days, we’re wired to have them.

As kids, we sleep in Superman or Wonder Woman pajamas, dress up as astronauts for Halloween, and dream of becoming firefighters.

Heroes provide us with a guiding light. They give us something to aspire to and an example to follow. All at a time when we’re at our most impressionable.

But even in our early days, the types of heroes we choose can vary.

Take me as an example.

My childhood hero was Bernie Williams, the centerfielder for the New York Yankees.

Growing up in New York during a time when the Yankees won four world championships, this might have seemed like a natural choice for me to idolize one of their players. But there weren’t a ton of other kids who looked up to Bernie the way I did.

Bernie Williams was an excellent player, to be sure. He won a batting title, and the statistics on the back of his baseball card always looked solid.

But he wasn’t flashy. He wasn’t loud. And he wasn’t self-aggrandizing.

He went about his business quietly and with class. Both on and off the field.

While others didn’t find these traits exciting, they intrigued me. I tried to follow his example as much as possible.

Yet, something strange happened when I had an opportunity to meet him.

I was in high school at the time, and was at an awards ceremony. The ceremony was being held in a large hotel ballroom, and I was told Bernie Williams was on the other side of the room.

This was actually not that unusual. On top of being a phenomenal baseball player, Bernie Williams has long been a standout classical guitarist. He would often perform at various events around the New York area — unannounced — during the off-season. And he was supposedly going to do just that at this event.

Coaxed on by my friends and acquaintances, I started walking across the room to meet the man I idolized. But with each step, my mind was racing.

Am I bothering Bernie by ambushing him at his table? I wondered. And even if not, how could I possibly express all he had meant to me throughout my childhood?

I must have gotten halfway across the room before I changed my mind. I walked back to my table and sat back down.

I don’t look back on this incident proudly. But it does carry weight for me. For it inadvertently marked a turning point in how I viewed the concept of heroes.

Bernie Williams had an outsized impact on my early life. But I didn’t directly know him at all. Everything I espoused and emulated came from what I saw of him on television, or what I read about him in books or newspapers.

There were some degrees of separation between me and my idol. So, it was difficult to reconcile just how much of my image of him was real. And that, as much as my shyness, made me terrified in the moment of truth — the moment when I could finally come face to face with him.

Now, I do believe that what I had seen and read about Bernie Williams was accurate. I believe he was, and is, the person I have always believed him to be. But when I talked myself out of an introduction in that hotel ballroom, I ceded the opportunity to find out for sure.

My loss. Or potentially my gain.

For as I reflected on the incident, I came to realize there were others I could look up to. Others who impacted my life in a positive way, but who I wouldn’t be so sheepish about approaching.

As I pondered who these might be, two people came to mind — one from each side of my family. They were my grandfather and my uncle.

I’ve written about both of them before.

My late grandfather — my mother’s father — was a World War II Navy veteran, who later became a math teacher in the New York City public school system. After he retired, he spent more than 30 years as a volunteer for the Museum of Modern Art. He spent all the time I knew him enriching the lives of others.

My uncle — my father’s brother — is a renowned cancer surgeon and researcher in Philadelphia. He’s spent all the time I’ve known him saving the lives of others.

But it’s far more than accolades that inspired me.

My grandfather was not just a veteran and a teacher. He was the best storyteller I ever knew, with an intrinsic knack for captivating an audience. My passion for writing and storytelling came from him.

My uncle is not just a defender against cancer. He sets a great example outside of his work on being selfless, staying even-keeled, and valuing the importance of family. I espouse many of these traits because of him.

And on top of that, both my grandfather and my uncle were approachable. I knew them well, and they knew me. This meant I was comfortable asking them for advice or letting them know I was following their example.

I might not have recognized it initially, but these were my real childhood heroes. These were the ones who played an outsized role in shaping me into the man I am.

I don’t think my experience is unique. I believe many of us are more inspired by those we know well than those who we see on TV screens or in comic books.

Sure, it may be flashier to idolize a famous person or character. It provides an easier point of reference when we share that information with friends and acquaintances.

But if the spirit of having heroes is to emulate their behavior, there’s no substitute for familiarity. I believe that with all my heart.

We must be able to ask questions, iterate and grow. And it’s hard to get to that point if we’re too far removed from our idols.

So, it’s time for us, as a society, to reevaluate who we prop up as heroes. It’s time for us to reconsider who should be wearing that crown.

For in this endeavor, notoriety only goes so far. It’s the closest ties that count the most.