04/18/24
July 20, 2011
"The Best Team I Ever Covered": Sports Illustrated has been asking writers & retired writers about the best teams they ever covered.
The interesting part about '98 to me is that was the last year that the Yankees didn't have the highest payroll in MLB (they were 2nd) and still won the series. I guess that somehow qualifies as chemistry.
posted by cixelsyd at 01:55 AM on July 21, 2011
I recall this site hates the idea of chemistry meaning shit to a team.
There really isn't such a thing as the site's opinion, but if I remember correctly the general consensus was that chemistry was over-rated and given too much credit, that while chemistry was certainly important, talent was more important. That getting along in the clubhouse doesn't trump having talent in the clubhouse. It's great that the 98 yankees pulled together with chemistry. It probably wouldn't have mattered if they weren't an amazingly talented team.
I don't recall anyone saying chemistry "didn't mean shit" to a team. Perhaps you could point out where this was the consensus of the site, or simply try not to misrepresent the side of an argument you disagree with.
posted by justgary at 07:48 AM on July 21, 2011
I hope they wait until this heat wave is over before they get a response from Gary Smith on this, because I'll need to be able to cozy up to the hearth on a long evening to read what he comes up with.
Sooner or later, one of these writers is going to have to give some love to the 1969-70 KC Chiefs.
posted by beaverboard at 08:54 AM on July 21, 2011
By combining jotun-head medicine, horse-smarts, and a bullwhip, I have managed to subdue and control the site's opinion, and let me be the first to tell you, it's a slippery beast. You'd be surprised at the gambits the site's opinion employs in attempting to escape my thrall. But my willpower and control of arcane ritual easily overmasters that of the site and even the slickest opinion finds itself ground beneath my ruthless heel before reaching the third runic set.
Suffice to say, the site's opinion wants to bash Verducci not for his delusional ideas about pinstripe chemistry or for his damn sexy piercing gaze, but for the audacity of this sentence: "Pulling together in a team meeting, on the brink of chaos, is the exact right place to start when you tell their story."
The sites opinion, currently pinioned between rimestones in what I believe you mortals call Ginnungagap, takes great offense at that hot grinner Verducci's presumption in claiming knowledge of chaos.
Verducci is a mere elemental. You can tell by his smoldering gaze and too-sexy suit pants. He should stick to what he knows: baseball, the fire king Surtr, Diet Coke with a lime twist, and the bright heat of Muspelheim.
Until he takes his place in his home batting order as they burn Bifrost bridge and herald Ragnarok, Verducci should keep quiet regarding chaos, about which he can only guess.
posted by Hugh Janus at 09:22 AM on July 21, 2011
But Wödin's FIP has been crap this year.
posted by yerfatma at 10:48 AM on July 21, 2011
Re: Hugh Janus
Hedley Lamarr: My mind is a raging torrent, flooded with rivulets of thought cascading into a waterfall of creative alternatives.
Taggart: God darnit, Mr. Lamarr, you use your tongue prettier than a twenty dollar whore.
*golf clap*
posted by wfrazerjr at 10:56 AM on July 21, 2011
To me, the closest thing to perfection in a team sport that I've ever personally witnessed was the 2004-05 London Knights.
They set major Canadian junior hockey record by running off a 30-game undefeated streak (28-0-2) to start the season.
They finished 59-7-2, to finish 30 points ahead of second place in their division (and conference, and league, as Owen Sound was the second best team in the league).
They proceeded to go 16-2 in the playoffs to make it to the Memorial Cup...which they were hosting, so they had an automatic bid anyways.
They then went 3-0 in the Memorial Cup round robin, giving them an automatic berth in the finals. There, they beat the Sidney-Crosby led Rimouski team 4-0, a team that had run off a streak of 35 games undefeated (including playoffs) that season.
posted by grum@work at 06:43 PM on July 22, 2011
Waiting for people to bash Verducci for claiming chemistry made the '98 Yankees historic. I recall this site hates the idea of chemistry meaning shit to a team.