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| WINNERS AND LOSERS | |
 October 26 ,1999 
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ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: In New York tonight, it's game three of the last World Series of the century, with the Yankees leading the Atlanta Braves two games to none. The Yankees destroyed the Texas Rangers and Boston Red Sox to get here, and have won nine of ten games in post-season play this year-- all this from the team that has already won more pennants and World Series than any other team ever. And this record inspires strong feelings in fans, including among our NewsHour regulars, as we hear now from essayist Roger Rosenblatt of the "New York Yankees," and poet laureate Robert Pinsky, once of the Brooklyn Dodgers, now with the Boston Red Sox. Robert Pinsky, why not love and admire the Yankees for all those wins? ROBERT PINSKY: These are excellent athletes. Anybody who doesn't love Derek Jeter, Paul O'Neill, El Duke. They're wonderful players. Yankee fans sometimes make the mistake of gloating about what is really a privilege. And the dignity in defeat, going back to the era of Robinson and Hodges and in the present era of Garcia Parra is something I admire. And imagination that gets us involved in things like sports teams has finer food than victory. Even the Yankees lose more World Series than they win. They don't win the World Series more often than not. As with any other form of affection or involvement, one has to realize that these-- though they're the excellent, best athletes imaginable-- they're mortal and fallible. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Roger, do you love them because of all the wins? ROGER ROSENBLATT: I don't know. Maybe I'm in danger of gloating because of my privileges. By the way the Yankees actually do win more World Series than-- it's getting into the World Series that they don't do in a majority but no team does. As for the fans, I'm trying to think of the times that I've enjoyed the civility of the Mets fans or the Red Sox' fans or the Cubs' fans or any of the fans that are associated with teams that don't win as much. And I'm sort of at a loss to do so. I just love the Yankees. The whole idea of the demonstration of excellence in anything, there seems to be only a penalty in sports. I wouldn't want to hear an opera singer hit a wrong note. I'd hate to see a ham actor come out on stage. Why should I lower my standards or anybody for that matter in the matter of baseball? ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Robert Pinsky, you just happen to have a poem on this subject. ROBERT PINSKY: I think it's said that Roger falls into the fallacy of confusing excellence, which is such a beautiful value, with the more paltry value of success. It reminds me of the public figure or politician who gloats or crows about starting a successful business and is complacent about the fact that the family had money... his father had a successful business or the family had a lot of associations. The privilege of having a rich market and of having a lot of money should be something that's not vaunted. The poem you're thinking of is Yates' wonderful poem to a friend whose work has come to nothing. And the lines I'm thinking of begin "bred to a harder scene than triumph." I think we're all as mortals bred to a harder thing than triumph. In the end the players all get fat, weak, and we all get old. You don't win in the end. Yates says, to a friend whose work has come to nothing - "Bred to a harder scene than triumph turn away and like laughing string where our mad singers play amid a place of stone, be secret and exult because of all scenes known, that is most difficult." ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Roger, have you got a dueling poem or can you refute this in prose? ROGER ROSENBLATT: I don't know if reputation is what I would achieve but I would like to add the words of at poet Laureate, Tennyson who talked about Ulysses at the end saying "Although we are not now the strength that in old days that moved heaven and earth, that which we are, we are. One equal temper of heroic hearts made weak by time and fate but strong and will to strive to seek to find and not to yield." ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Robert Pinsky, do you think success is just not as interesting as losing? I'm thinking of a line in your poem, the Night Game, that refers to Whitey Ford. You say about whitey ford, quote, never a player I liked or hated, a Yankee, a mere success. "Mere success"? ROBERT PINSKY: Well, one needs an awful lot of successes. Success for all of us is temporary. Transitory thing. I do thing there are values in sports and in life that are more interesting than success. The most moving athletic events are the ones after which the players-- the players who have a code for the most part, certainly in baseball if not gloating-- the players say it's a shame anyone had to lose. It was a shame that anyone had to lose that one. I thought Roger read those Tennyson lines beautifully. And they're quite germane. Ulysses is well on in life. He's seen a lot of heroes. The Victor Achilles goes down the same way the loser Paris goes down. Hector goes down. Success is not as interesting as striving, as in the Tennyson lines. And success does seem to me a paltry value. When we have it, we should be humble about it. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Roger? ROGER ROSENBLATT: Well, it's hard to be in the position of having the braves down two zip and yearn for humility. I'll try to do it on a general virtuous basis, but I often find that the people who say it's too bad somebody had to win this game are the guys who won it. As for the beauty of defeat or effort, even in tragedy, you know, Hamlet wins before he loses his life. I'm kind of stretching to make something great and noble out of the beauty of sport whose simplicity as a matter of fact is defined by whether someone does win or lose since most of the rest of life is too complicated or too nuance to show us that. The beauty of games, for those of us who play them or those of us who watch them, is that there is a winner or loser and there are clean things to make it up. If you make an error, you are likely to lose, as the Red Sox made several errors in the series against the Yankees. If you don't, you are likelier to win. So there is-- Robert may wish to make a distinction between excellence and success, but in most cases, certainly in sports, the more excellent, the more success. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: All right. Roger Rosenblatt, Robert Pinsky, thanks a lot. |
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