It's nice to come into a town and be referred to as the manager of the Cleveland Indians instead of as the first black manager.
Frank RobinsonRead
Close don't count in baseball. Close only counts in horseshoes and grenades.
Interpretation
Being close to success isnβt enough; actual outcomes matter.
This quote by Frank Robinson emphasizes the importance of achieving tangible results rather than merely coming close to success. In baseball, scoring a run requires crossing home plate, and simply being near that goal means nothing; similarly, in life, only actual accomplishments count, while good intentions or near successes do not hold significance.
In practice
This quote can be used during a sports team meeting to emphasize the importance of execution.
It's nice to come into a town and be referred to as the manager of the Cleveland Indians instead of as the first black manager.
As a black, you find you have to be two or three times better than a white even to play. And when it comes to front-office jobs, management believes you'll never be as good.
It was a breaking period for black people coming into baseball, and how many followed depended on Jackie's conduct. But that's not the case now. What and how I do doesn't mean nearly as much as what and how Jackie did.
It's nice to have writers write nice things about you and guys on radio and TV say nice things about you, but the guy who's in the locker next to you is the one you play the game for.
I can honestly say that I never 'enjoyed' our meetings, but the respect I have for Peyton Manning as a competitor was, and will likely remain, second to none.
I believe in work, in connections between the players, I think what makes football great is that it is a team sport. You can win in different ways, by being more of a team, or by having better individual players. It is the team ethic that interests me, always.
The best way to stop Messi is when you play with 11 men and then you can double mark him, one player to stay on him and the other to help out. If it is 11 against 10 then you have almost no chance of stopping him.
I don't care how many championships you've won or how many records you've broken - if you've had a hand in pushing forward not only a game but women in sport's movement, then I think that's pretty darn good.
I don't look at football as a violent, barbaric sport. It's a very spiritual sport, especially for someone facing the challenges during a game: the fear of failure, the fear of getting too big an ego, of making a mistake and everybody criticizing you.
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