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Lost cause Titles won aren't the only measure of greatness
Sports Illustrated senior writer Phil Taylor touches on a Hot Button issue each Monday on CNNSI.com. After you read Phil's take, give us yours. I'm a loser. Wait, you don't have to be so quick to agree. At least let me make my case first. I must be a loser because I'd be happy to be an Atlanta Brave, or a Buffalo Bill, or a member of the Utah Jazz. Those teams are among the biggest losers in professional sports, or at least the losers of the biggest games. They succeed just enough to put themselves in position to fail when everyone's watching, when they're just a step or two short of a championship. The Braves did it again Sunday night, when the Arizona Diamondbacks eliminated them in the National League Championship Series to move on to the World Series, the same World Series the Braves have won only once since 1992, despite having won their division title every season in that span. If I were a Brave, I would have been crushed at the end of every season that didn't end with a World Series title, just as I would have been devastated by each of the Bills' four Super Bowl losses, or the various, unsuccessful championship flirtations of the Jazz, including two losing trips to the NBA Finals. Each individual defeat would be painful, but I'd rather have those teams' extended runs of success, even if they usually ended up no more than second best, than almost any other team's history. There ought to be a lifetime achievement award given in sports, call it the Sisyphus, that goes to teams who keep coming back year after year and pushing the rock almost up to the very top of the hill. Champions often talk about how it's harder to repeat than it is to win the first time. But it's harder still to shake off a failed run at a title and come back with the same determination to go after yet another. That's what teams like the Braves, Jazz and Bills have done, and those stretches of near-greatness are more impressive than any single championship season. It's possible to catch lightning in a bottle and win a title, but years of sustained excellence are harder to pull off. That's why I'll take the Braves' nine seasons of near-misses over the Florida Marlins' one World Series title in 1997. Give me the Bills' four seasons of reaching the Super Bowl over the St. Louis Rams' one title (so far). We're told all the time that winning it all is all that counts, that championships are the ultimate, indisputable measure of greatness. Dan Marino may be all over the NFL record book, but can he really be the greatest quarterback ever if he never won a Super Bowl? Wilt Chamberlain's statistics dwarf Bill Russell's, but how can Wilt have been better when Russell has nine more championships? But titles aren't the only way to determine a player's stature, they're just the easiest. They're often just a shortcut we use to avoid deeper analysis. Arizona's Craig Counsell is going to his second World Series while Barry Bonds has never played in one. That tells us what, exactly, about Counsell in relation to Bonds? Championships won are a huge factor in judging players, but far from the only factor. The same is true of teams. Aside from the Chicago Bulls' dynasty, the greatest NBA franchise of the last 15 years has been the Jazz, even though teams like the Rockets, Lakers and Spurs have won more titles. Other than the Yankees, the Braves have been the best in baseball over the last decade, even though they have only one ring to show for it. There's obviously something to be said for being able to close the deal, for having the talent, grit and grace under pressure to win a title when it's within your grasp. Teams that pull it off are true winners. But the ones who barely miss, yet keep on coming, are hardly losers. Sports Illustrated senior writer Phil Taylor writes about a Hot Button issue every Monday on CNNSI.com. The opinions expressed here are solely those of the writer.
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