{"id":2257,"date":"2010-12-14T16:50:09","date_gmt":"2010-12-14T22:50:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/?p=2257"},"modified":"2010-12-14T17:02:54","modified_gmt":"2010-12-14T23:02:54","slug":"cliff-lee-destroying-a-legacy-doubtful","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/archives\/2257","title":{"rendered":"Cliff Lee: Destroying A Legacy? Doubtful."},"content":{"rendered":"

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After hearing about Cliff Lee<\/a><\/strong> duping the entire world, forgoing destinations like Texas and New York and returning back to Philadelphia, I can\u2019t help but find the similarities between this free agent signing and Lebron James.\u00a0 I\u2019m not trying to say that Lee pulled something like \u201cThe Decision.\u201d\u00a0 I am trying to say that what Lee did was find some running mates to help get him to the top.\u00a0 Most people seem to think that this is the route traveled by spineless men.\u00a0 Some of the most popular condemnations I have heard of LeBron center around the idea that he couldn\u2019t get it done on his own.\u00a0 That he was afraid of taking on the challenge by himself.\u00a0 This is absurd.\u00a0 Any smart person, be it a professional athlete or a successful business leader, knows that to reach the highest levels of success, they must surround themselves with the best team.<\/p>\n

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Colin Cowherd expressed this very belief on his radio show this morning as I drove to work.\u00a0 He spoke about how what Lee wanted was to surround himself with winners.\u00a0 I can\u2019t agree more.\u00a0 As a coach, I do the same thing.\u00a0 I establish a staff of assistants that I consider to be the best at what they do.\u00a0 To think that someone must go it alone, or carry the team on his own back to a championship screams insecurity.\u00a0 It is also one of the most audacious claims I have ever heard.\u00a0 As a matter of fact, it denies the very theory of team, of bringing together a group of individuals who can count on one another to get things done.\u00a0 Why should we expect a team to rely on just one person the whole way?<\/p>\n

But the Rangers have guys like Josh Hamilton<\/a><\/strong>, C.J. Wilson<\/a><\/strong>, Nelson Cruz<\/a><\/strong>, Michael Young<\/a><\/strong>, Ian Kinsler<\/a><\/strong>, and Neftali Feliz<\/a><\/strong>. How is this not surrounding yourself with a high caliber team?\u00a0 A fair point, but here is my rebuttal.\u00a0 Is there any player on that roster that has a history of making it deep into the playoffs year in and year out?\u00a0 Do those guys have a history of winning titles?\u00a0 One year is not enough to answer yes to those questions.\u00a0 Phila, on the other hand, does have that pedigree.\u00a0 Jimmy Rollins<\/a><\/strong>.\u00a0 Ryan Howard<\/a><\/strong>.\u00a0 Chase Utley<\/a><\/strong>.\u00a0 Shane Victorino<\/a><\/strong>.\u00a0 Brad Lidge<\/a><\/strong>.\u00a0 All of these guys have proven that they can win a World Series and get back to the World Series.\u00a0 And as a matter of fact, they have shown off this pedigree as much as any other team in the last decade.\u00a0 Again, true winners understand the concept of surrounding yourself with other proven winners; the Texas Rangers just aren\u2019t made up of those guys yet.<\/p>\n

And what about the financial uncertainties of the Rangers?\u00a0 Sure, they have new ownership that has people believing that they can spend with the big boys.\u00a0 Sure, Dallas is a large market.\u00a0 But none of this has withstood the test of time yet.\u00a0 It has yet to be proven that Dallas attracts big free agents.\u00a0 It has yet to be proven that this new ownership will spend vast amounts of money needed to bring in big time guys.\u00a0 And when you are talking about a man committing his services for the next half-decade (which will probably be the final part of Lee\u2019s prime considering that he turns 33 this summer) there is no logical reason to commit to uncertainty.\u00a0 Lee has nothing left to prove as a pitcher (individual<\/a>), all he has left to do is win.\u00a0 Winning is done with a team.\u00a0 It is done with a team of proven winners.<\/p>\n

Over at the Royals Review<\/a>, Will McDonald claims that by signing with the Philadelphia Phillies, Cliff Lee<\/a><\/strong> has destroyed his legacy<\/a>. This is as harebrained of an opinion as I can imagine.\u00a0 This was the same knock on LeBron.\u00a0 It is laughable for a person to claim that by surrounding yourself with winners, you are doing yourself some sort of injustice.\u00a0 Dan Marino was never surrounded with great athletes for teammates and what is his one knock?\u00a0 Never winning the big one.\u00a0 So to say that Lee, a pitcher who has won a Cy Young and turned fringe contenders for playoff spots into World Series participants, is destroying his legacy is just wrong.\u00a0 He has shown year in and year out that on his own he is a great pitcher.\u00a0 But no single player wins a title.\u00a0 A team wins a title.\u00a0 Just ask anyone from the San Francisco Giants.\u00a0 And I am not even going to mention the fact that Lee turned down both guaranteed years and money.\u00a0 That is just icing on the proverbial cake.\u00a0 So as 50 Cent once said, I will say to Cliff Lee<\/a><\/strong> (and LeBron): \u201cGo ahead and switch the style up\/and if they hate then let \u2018em hate and watch the money (in this case rings) pile up.\u201d
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After hearing about Cliff Lee duping the entire world, forgoing destinations like Texas and New York and returning back to Philadelphia, I can\u2019t help but find the similarities between this free agent signing and Lebron James.\u00a0 I\u2019m not trying to say that Lee pulled something like \u201cThe Decision.\u201d\u00a0 I am trying to say that what […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1300,17,6,11,13,14],"tags":[1503,1505,1504,135,579,1502,63,410,62,1506,563,64,491,71,297,681,584,112,61,617],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2257"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2257"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2257\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2261,"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2257\/revisions\/2261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}