EEK Thinks

Baseball is a game of life. It's not perfect, but it feels like it is. That's the magic of it. We are responsible for giving it the respect it deserves. Our sport is part of the American soul, and it's ours to borrow -- just for a while. If all of us who love baseball and are doing our jobs, then those who get the game from us will be as proud to be a part of it as we were. And we are. This game is a gift, and I am humbled, very humbled, to accept its greatest honor.

The one thing I've always promised them from the very beginning was I would never forget how hard the game is. I know sometimes they make it look really easy, but I'm not going to forget how hard it is. So I'm never going to come down on guys when they're struggling as long as they're working. I ask them to work and I'm not going to give up on them. I'm just not. I know they're going to go through slumps, they're going to give up hits, they're going to have bad outings, stuff like that happens in the game.

Losers assemble in little groups and complain about the coaches and players in other little groups. But winners assemble as a team.

I'm heartened by the fact that Henry Ford didn't start the assembly line until he was 60. Raymond Chandler didn't write his first novel until he was 52. Colonel Sanders didn't start franchising until he was 65. And on and on. Everyone wants to know what their "purpose" in life is. This is a man-made myth. We don't have to have a purpose.

In three Finals games, Leonard is a combined 13 for 31 shooting, but Engelland doesn't worry about percentages. Sometimes shots just don't fall. That's part of the psychology he uses with every player he trains. Feel-based goals, not numerical ones, lead to improvement.

In other words, if I told you to close your eyes and imagine what would happen if Tiago Splitter tried to dunk on LeBron James, that’s what happened. LeBron met Splitter at what for Splitter was the mountaintop, but for LeBron was something like the second shelf from the top in his cereal cupboard, and sent that thing away with the businesslike disdain of a Foxconn employee taking a scratched iPhone screen off the assembly line and tossing it into a trash bin.

That's what you have to do: you have to be confident in your potential, and aware of your inexperience. And that's really tough. There are moments when you'll have a different point of view because you're a fresh set of eyes; because you don't care how it's been done before; because you're sharp and creative; because there is another way, a better way. But there will also be moments when you have a different point of view because you're wrong, because you're 23 and you should shut up and listen to somebody who's been around the block.

After we eventually won the Blockbuster battle, I looked back and realized all those things distracted us. They didn’t help, and they marginally hurt. The reason we won is because we improved our everyday service of shipping and delivering. That experience grounded us. Executing better on the core mission is the way to win.

I believe that if, at the end, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do. To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts. We must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. We must try. I didn’t always know this and am happy I lived long enough to find it out.

One thing is for sure: Magic stands alone at the top of this category.