Opening Day: She’s coming back to me

The mistress of spring is coming back home after a heady trip abroad. She’s wearing a devilish blue dress, cut low, the way I like it, and carrying a baseball bat. Again, the way I love it. That is but one vision of baseball that in my more sensuous dreams might exist.

“What is Love?” but that of a pitcher scraping dirt off the rubber, digging his toe into side, and steaming a bee ball toward a tightly-muscled assassin with a 35-inch thunder maker in his clutches. As the pop of the mit or the sweet crack of the bat means we are seeing the first of thousands of confrontations between the two diametrically-opposed fellas. That is love to a baseball fan.

In our nation’s capital, as the 2008 election stirs patriotic feelings, the Washington Nationals open a new cathedral for the baseball gods to perform their wondrous feats. It seems Cuba’s better known Castro knew the park was going to be a startling vision, and decided, “leader of Cuba or new Washington Senator, er, National pitching prospect?” and chose to give it, just one more try.

As a team in search of a new owner, the Chicago Cubs are seeking to break through after 100 years. 100 years. When they last proclaimed the title of World Champions, the world had no supersonic travel, no television, no atomic annihilation, no internet, no rights to vote for women, and still held back African-Americans. How times have evolved for some. As the team has changed hands, from restaurateur, to gum maker, to son-of-a-(gun) gum maker to corporate conglomerate, the loyalty of the fans has kept alive the dreams of William Wrigley, who never won a title, but is the name everyone will forever associate with the ballpark at Clark & Addison. No matter what the current real estate man has to say about it.

In Los Angeles, fifty years after their movement west on a subsonic bird of Orville Wright’s wilder dreams, the Dodgers are playing again in the L.A. Coliseum. A place developed for Olympic feats and USC football, it makes for a quirky attempt to put 80,000 fans aghast at the odd dimensions swinging around to the left field area. Where an outfielder has to put on protective gear, or at least, gets an opportunity to add 3rd base to his list of abilities. Only outfielder Wally Moon might reminisce fondly about his time hitting in this short-lived version of a major league ballpark.

These are some of the new memories surrounding the return of my mistress from abroad. She is a broad – curvy, sometimes luscious, full of vigor, but she never ages – and yet, she is hardened by a seven-score affirmation that every spring she’ll come back home to us. Fresh. A clean slate. Mistakes forgiven. And more new memories to make whilst “rounding the sack.”

Opening Day. She’s home.

in 1929, just three years before he died. Wrigley has been dead for seventy-five years, yet his legacy lives on. But what does William Wrigley have in common with today's top one percent?

Wrigley wasn't first to market in the chewing gum business. He understood his client. Simple. He refused to give up. He was creative in penetrating his market, he gave away premiums, he was a pioneer.

Success isn't about studying the mindset of students. Success is about studying failure and how we react to it. So how do the top one percent think? What got them there? How do they think differently? What are their thoughts about failure? And how does that separate them from the rest of the world?

What about passion, did they follow theirs, or are they mercenaries? Where does humility fit into the equation or does it? What drives them, fear power or greed? What do they think they are an expert at and how do they view learning? Do they suffer from the "know-it-all" syndrome? How much time do they spend learning, what, when and where? Do they watch television and if so, what? What are their mistakes and how do they perceive them? Or are their mistakes simply life lessons?

What are their views about instinct, luck and intuition? What schools did they go and did it matter? What role do their networks play and how good of a networker are they? What role has mentoring played in their life and who was their mentor? Are they loners or joiners? What professional organizations have their joined and how did they help them?

Has the “know it all syndrome” gotten in your way? Do you know your own weaknesses and are they a double edge sword? Do 360°s matter and if so what did you learn?

What role does learning play, what do you learn, is lifelong learning jargon, does it matter? Where do you learn and from whom, what and where? Who mentored them and does it matter? Are they conformists or non-conformists? How much does reputation matter and how do you develop it, protect and nourish it? How much does legacy matter?

What does networking mean to them and how do they build their networks? How do you market, when and with whom? What about credentialing and professional organizations? Who are the top one percent and what responsibility do they have to the rest of the world?

How does the mind, bond and spirit intersect, or does it?

Copyright 2007 Ev Nucci

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