Sunday, September 26, 2004
Stuck In The Middle
Let's say you're a downtrodden individual, and are continuously bested over the years, by others who fight dirty, have more resources, and are just outright evil. You're competing again against those who have beaten you, in some sort of important competition. Maybe it's sales for your company. Maybe it's an athletic event. Maybe it's in pie-eating. Whatever it is, the way the competition is structured, it's possible that if you do poorly in the preliminary rounds, you'll assure yourself of a better situation for the later rounds. Normally, you wouldn't consider this sort of crafty behavior, but after being beaten up over and over again, and having succumbed to the craftiness of others, you're considering pulling out all the stops...but will it work? What if you dog it too much and you shoot yourself in the foot? Fate will curse you again!
This somewhat contrived situation exactly describes two real-life scenarios with surprising accuracy. The first has to do with baseball, and the second has to do with politics:
So, clearly, in baseball, the Red Sox are the downtrodden entity, and Yankees are the evil ones. It appears that at this point, both the Sox and Yanks will make the playoffs again this year. Due to the fact that they're in the same division as each other, they won't play each other in the first round. If things continue as they are, one team will play Minnesota, and one will play Oakland (or maybe Anaheim). Last year, as in most years in recent memory, Minnesota has been the weakest playoff team, and as such, has to play the Yankees, who have the best record. As recently as a week ago, both Minnesota and Oakland had about the same record. Additionally, the Red Sox had a shot at beating out the Yankees for the division title.
This year, the Twins have an ace-in-the-hole, Johan Santana. You may not have heard of him, but you will. He's simply an amazing pitcher. And the baseball playoffs are structured so that in the first round, the teams play a best-of-5 series, which is just long enough to start one pitcher twice, and maybe two, if you really want to push it. Santana would definitely be that guy for the Twins. He's so much better than any other pitcher who would pitch against him (except maybe Schilling) that he gives the Twins a huge first-round advantage if he pitches twice - win those two games, and there's only one more necessary to take the series. I wouldn't want to face him.
So, you're the Red Sox. What do you do? Go all out and win the division title, knowing that if history is any indication, the Twins will have the worse record, and then you might have to play them? Or dog it just a bit, and hope you get to face the A's? I know, almost all teams would just play all-out and win. And, honestly, the way this has worked out, the Red Sox didn't quite do well enough to win the division...but the Twins are likely to beat the A's! So the Red Sox might be in big trouble. As if the downtrodden needed to be trodden down and more.
Now, in the second scenario, it's pretty obvious the abused party (heh) is the Democrats, and the masterminds are the Republican. In Colorado, some crafty Democrats are trying to pass a ballot that will allow Colorado to divide its electoral votes based on the state's popular vote. If Colorado goes for Bush again, then Kerry would still likely pick up 4 votes. It's a crafty move, and threatens to make Colorado irrelevant in terms of campaigning, but hey, if you need to pull out all the stops, then I guess you have to do so. Here's the problem - Bush only has an 8% edge, and as recently as a couple of weeks ago had a 2% edge. So what do you do if you're the Democrats? Vote down the referendum at the last minute, if the polls show that Kerry's making a push? Because if Kerry ends up winning the state, and your vote passes, then you've ended up costing Kerry 4 votes - but there's no way to know.
I know that the honorable thing is to just fight your hardest and let the results speak for themselves. I can understand the temptation of these underdogs to resort to whatever tactics they feel are necessary. But I can help but shake the feeling that if they end up sinking to sneaky tactics, and play down the level of their opponents, then they're likely to get snake-bitten in the end by cruel twists of fate.
This somewhat contrived situation exactly describes two real-life scenarios with surprising accuracy. The first has to do with baseball, and the second has to do with politics:
So, clearly, in baseball, the Red Sox are the downtrodden entity, and Yankees are the evil ones. It appears that at this point, both the Sox and Yanks will make the playoffs again this year. Due to the fact that they're in the same division as each other, they won't play each other in the first round. If things continue as they are, one team will play Minnesota, and one will play Oakland (or maybe Anaheim). Last year, as in most years in recent memory, Minnesota has been the weakest playoff team, and as such, has to play the Yankees, who have the best record. As recently as a week ago, both Minnesota and Oakland had about the same record. Additionally, the Red Sox had a shot at beating out the Yankees for the division title.
This year, the Twins have an ace-in-the-hole, Johan Santana. You may not have heard of him, but you will. He's simply an amazing pitcher. And the baseball playoffs are structured so that in the first round, the teams play a best-of-5 series, which is just long enough to start one pitcher twice, and maybe two, if you really want to push it. Santana would definitely be that guy for the Twins. He's so much better than any other pitcher who would pitch against him (except maybe Schilling) that he gives the Twins a huge first-round advantage if he pitches twice - win those two games, and there's only one more necessary to take the series. I wouldn't want to face him.
So, you're the Red Sox. What do you do? Go all out and win the division title, knowing that if history is any indication, the Twins will have the worse record, and then you might have to play them? Or dog it just a bit, and hope you get to face the A's? I know, almost all teams would just play all-out and win. And, honestly, the way this has worked out, the Red Sox didn't quite do well enough to win the division...but the Twins are likely to beat the A's! So the Red Sox might be in big trouble. As if the downtrodden needed to be trodden down and more.
Now, in the second scenario, it's pretty obvious the abused party (heh) is the Democrats, and the masterminds are the Republican. In Colorado, some crafty Democrats are trying to pass a ballot that will allow Colorado to divide its electoral votes based on the state's popular vote. If Colorado goes for Bush again, then Kerry would still likely pick up 4 votes. It's a crafty move, and threatens to make Colorado irrelevant in terms of campaigning, but hey, if you need to pull out all the stops, then I guess you have to do so. Here's the problem - Bush only has an 8% edge, and as recently as a couple of weeks ago had a 2% edge. So what do you do if you're the Democrats? Vote down the referendum at the last minute, if the polls show that Kerry's making a push? Because if Kerry ends up winning the state, and your vote passes, then you've ended up costing Kerry 4 votes - but there's no way to know.
I know that the honorable thing is to just fight your hardest and let the results speak for themselves. I can understand the temptation of these underdogs to resort to whatever tactics they feel are necessary. But I can help but shake the feeling that if they end up sinking to sneaky tactics, and play down the level of their opponents, then they're likely to get snake-bitten in the end by cruel twists of fate.
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