In my other blogging life, I write about hockey. As a fan of the Pittsburgh Penguins, I am
accustomed to professional sports franchises calling players-only
meetings. Over the past few seasons, in
fact, I think I can state, factually, that I can’t even count the number of
times Pittsburgh’s NHL franchise has held “players-only” meetings.
For the Pittsburgh Penguins, “players-only” meetings come
with the territory of being a team that’s expected to win the Stanley Cup every
season. (For a team with generational talents
Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin, simply contending for the Cup is not
sufficient. Pittsburgh’s hockey team is
expected to end each season as the best in the NHL.) And, so, over the past few seasons, this hockey
fan has become relatively numb to the Penguins and their penchant for holding
players-only meetings.
Oh, the Penguins are in a bit of a slump in midseason? Time for a players-only meeting.
Oh, the Penguins aren’t performing to expectations at the start
of the season? Time for a few
players-only meetings.
Oh, something’s gone wrong with the power play, the penalty
kill, or the team’s lost a few consecutive games?
Someone on the Penguins—whether it’s captain Sidney Crosby
or alternate captain Brooks Orpik or veteran Craig Adams or reformed
pest Matt Cooke—typically calls for a players-only meeting when the Penguins
fail to perform to expectations.
As a fan of hockey and baseball, I know the sports are different. I also know “meetings” aren’t a
cure-all. When Kris Letang and Sidney
Crosby were both out of the line-up this winter, the Penguins weren’t the same
team they were with those two players in the line-up (this is a simple
statement of fact). “Players-only”
meetings are not a cure for a lack of talent, the right players in the wrong
roles, or the wrong players in the wrong roles. “Players-only” meetings might help to clear
emotional air, but if emotions aren’t the problem—and plain old talent and
ability-to-execute is—there’s a limit to what players-only meetings can achieve
for a professional sports franchise.
And yet I read on Twitter this afternoon that the Pirates
were having a players-only meeting while in their worst stretch of the
season. And I was thrilled.
Not because I magically expect the meeting to be a cure for
the Pirates to go out and beat the Dodgers’ ace pitcher tonight.
Not because I believe the only problem with the Pirates is
mental/emotional. (Seriously, look at
the 7-8-9 hitters in the lineup, and tell me how that lineup scored the most
runs in MLB in one summer month. You’ll
be baffled/boggled if you look at individual stat lines in isolation.)
But, because, in calling for a players-only meeting, something
had changed. Pittsburgh fans who now boo when the
Pirates lose (yes, spoiled brat fans of the Pittsburgh Penguins boo a power
play of All-Stars Crosby, Malkin, Neal, and Letang when it fails to score) have
had their expectations altered. But,
more importantly, the Pirates—in calling a meeting that says what is happening right
now isn’t acceptable—show something else.
They show their own expectations have changed.
The team that everyone expected to lose now expects to win.
You can wince because the Pirates have to call a
players-only meeting. You can wince because
the players-only meeting isn’t likely to solve problems that are primarily about
talent and tactics (bullpen management/performance, a few hitters in the
batting order simply not necessarily being the kind of hitters typically in
those roles on teams ordinarily classified as “contenders”). You can roll your eyes and point out—absolutely,
completely correctly—that the Pirates simply need their best players to be
their best players and every player to perform at his peak and a meeting isn’t
likely to be the cure-all for tired arms or nagging injuries or overall fatigue
and whatever else might be causing problems in the dog days of August.
Or you can smile about the Pirates calling a players-only
meeting. Not because you’re delusional enough
to believe that an “emotional lift” is all that a team that’s consistently overachieved
to this point needs to return to their overachieving ways. Not because you’re convinced it’s just the
players’ minds and hearts that are a little on-edge and a meeting will be
enough to calm them down and get them back on track.
But because, in having a player who called a meeting, and in
having players who actually show up at the ballpark expecting to win every game,
the Pirates show that expectations have changed.
So—let’s smile. (And,
yes, please, let’s just not have another players-only meeting after another
awful loss (as the Penguins, in one recent season, seemed to have made a habit
of at least once a week). Let’s just
get back to playing winning baseball.
Let’s get back on track. Let’s
have talent get out of slumps. Let’s
have tactics that make sense to put talent in the best position to win games.)
But, really, the Pittsburgh Pirates called a players-only
meeting because they expect to win games and are disappointed they’re not
winning games and because they know something is wrong that they need to
address.
As silly as that sounds and seems, it is progress that is
worth celebrating—no matter what results come or don’t come from this
players-only meeting.
Think of the difference of snickering that comes because “Really,
a players-only meeting again?” due to expectations not being met, and snickering
that comes when it’s “Um, you expected a different result?” Think of a team that would never call a
players-only meeting when trouble happens, and think of a team that acknowledges
losing isn’t a pattern they want to continue.
While the Pirates remain a long way from the perennial
contender status their local professional hockey counterpart maintains, I had to
smile when I read about my baseball team having a players-only meeting. And, knowing what I know of how the Penguins’
kids eventually became experienced All-Stars, there was a first step to that
process.
It’s called expecting to win. It’s called acknowledging less-than-expected
performance. It’s called learning how
to fix poor performance.
Those last two sentences are where the Pirates find
themselves now—and it’s a continuous process that all players and franchises
(to one degree or another) engage in (and the ones that do it best are
crowned champions at a season’s end).
But the expectations have changed. So, don’t wince at the players-only meeting. Choose, instead, to celebrate what a
players-only meeting reflects: A
franchise that has been the laughingstock of baseball (through no fault, it should be noted, of the players on the current team) for the past nineteen years has
taken the first step to saying, “Enough is enough. We expect to win.”
The meeting may have a terrible effect, no effect, little effect, some effect, delayed
effect, or immediate impact. But the
meeting isn’t the point. It’s what the
meeting reflects that matters.
The Pittsburgh Pirates think something is wrong when they’re
not winning. The expectations have changed.
When expectations change—culture changes. When culture changes, streaks, even
horrible, historical, ignominious ones, will eventually be broken.
Whatever the result
tonight, or over the next few weeks, or next month, celebrate this moment, when
a players-only meeting called in mid-August reveals that Pittsburgh’s baseball
team is simply stating: We’re the Pittsburgh Pirates, and we expect
to win baseball games.
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