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[This is part of a series exploring the Baseball Tarot. If you would like to prompt for a part of the game or a card from the deck, there's still plenty of space. Leave a comment with a prompt. All other comments are still welcome, of course.]
If you look at a newspaper, or various sports reporting on the standings of a sports team, among the more common statistics such as the number of wins and losses, the standing of the team in terms of the number of "games back" or "games behind" the leader of the division (and as the playoffs approach, the leaders of the wild card race) a team is, and the number of wins and losses in the last ten games, there's a curious bit that refers to the "streak" the team is on. The streak just refers to the number of times a team has had the same result, whether win or loss. So, you could call it a measure of improbability, as these days, especially in Major League Baseball, any team in the league can beat any other team. Much to the chagrin of the fans of the New York Yankees and other big market teams that tend to have payroll well past the luxury tax (and the eternal delight of those who root against them), having the highest-paid players on your team is no guarantee of success.
We've already seen what a losing streak looks like when we took a look at the slump, as that's generally what a losing streak is called in baseball. By doing so, fans and players remind themselves that such things are only temporary and at some point in time, perhaps soon, perhaps later, they will win a game again. Those games may be few and far between, as there have been teams that lose 100 or more of their regular season games in a single year. It's a little bit harder for fans to remember that winning streaks also do this if your team tends to win more than they lose, but those are usually passed off as bad luck or other flukes. Cognitive biases at work, ladies and gentleness.
That said, a long winning streak, like the one the Washington Nationals put on this year (ten games!) is something to behold, as rarely does a team win the same way twice. The Nationals ended up winning half of those games with timely hitting in the bottom of the ninth, which is a thrill for their fans, and proof that a team that can stay close can sometimes win games they had no business winning on paper. So long as the winning continues, mistakes are forgiven, decisions unquestioned, and everybody has a good time. Even the most drama-filled team looks like a cohesive unit when they're winning more often than not.
The team is the most important part of a winning streak, because baseball can't consistently put the outcome of the game always on a quarterback or point guard or star forward. Each player has to contribute at their appointed time in the batting order, and field and throw what balls come their way. Which is why the meaning of the card, when it appears, talks about teamwork and everyone doing their assigned roles. If you're on the winning streak, it's meant to be both a celebration of your successes, but also a reminder that those successes are not accomplished in a vacuum, so acknowledging and recognizing the contributions of your teammates in addition to yourself is the way to go.
For example, yesterday I received notification that a person in my cohort at another work site nominated me and a couple others for the highest award our organization gives for helping sort and process the entries in our annual teen writing, drawing, and photography contest, especially the work day where all the entries are checked for completeness and then bundled off to their preliminary judges. It takes a significant amount of time to complete for the crew. This year, things went seamlessly and we finished well ahead of schedule. A team effort is necessary to make the contest work as well as it does. The acknowledgement helps ensure those team members are lonely to come back again next year.
That said, the organization as a whole doesn't have a lot if ways of acknowledging the team effort, and it can sometimes seem like lip service from the top when they talk about how excellent we are on one hand but rarely follow through on finding ways to reward that excellence. It can be dangerous to think that the winning streak is primarily because of you, because if you engender that idea, it's going to be you they come after when the winning streak stops. And you they get mad at if you can't immediately start another streak right after the last one. Many a person's job has been removed when the company that expects them to win all the time has to deal with the fact that winning all the time is inherently highly improbable.
After all, if you could do it like that, casinos, gaming houses, and shysters playing three-card monte wouldn't be able to make enough money on your losses to keep themselves in business.
If you look at a newspaper, or various sports reporting on the standings of a sports team, among the more common statistics such as the number of wins and losses, the standing of the team in terms of the number of "games back" or "games behind" the leader of the division (and as the playoffs approach, the leaders of the wild card race) a team is, and the number of wins and losses in the last ten games, there's a curious bit that refers to the "streak" the team is on. The streak just refers to the number of times a team has had the same result, whether win or loss. So, you could call it a measure of improbability, as these days, especially in Major League Baseball, any team in the league can beat any other team. Much to the chagrin of the fans of the New York Yankees and other big market teams that tend to have payroll well past the luxury tax (and the eternal delight of those who root against them), having the highest-paid players on your team is no guarantee of success.
We've already seen what a losing streak looks like when we took a look at the slump, as that's generally what a losing streak is called in baseball. By doing so, fans and players remind themselves that such things are only temporary and at some point in time, perhaps soon, perhaps later, they will win a game again. Those games may be few and far between, as there have been teams that lose 100 or more of their regular season games in a single year. It's a little bit harder for fans to remember that winning streaks also do this if your team tends to win more than they lose, but those are usually passed off as bad luck or other flukes. Cognitive biases at work, ladies and gentleness.
That said, a long winning streak, like the one the Washington Nationals put on this year (ten games!) is something to behold, as rarely does a team win the same way twice. The Nationals ended up winning half of those games with timely hitting in the bottom of the ninth, which is a thrill for their fans, and proof that a team that can stay close can sometimes win games they had no business winning on paper. So long as the winning continues, mistakes are forgiven, decisions unquestioned, and everybody has a good time. Even the most drama-filled team looks like a cohesive unit when they're winning more often than not.
The team is the most important part of a winning streak, because baseball can't consistently put the outcome of the game always on a quarterback or point guard or star forward. Each player has to contribute at their appointed time in the batting order, and field and throw what balls come their way. Which is why the meaning of the card, when it appears, talks about teamwork and everyone doing their assigned roles. If you're on the winning streak, it's meant to be both a celebration of your successes, but also a reminder that those successes are not accomplished in a vacuum, so acknowledging and recognizing the contributions of your teammates in addition to yourself is the way to go.
For example, yesterday I received notification that a person in my cohort at another work site nominated me and a couple others for the highest award our organization gives for helping sort and process the entries in our annual teen writing, drawing, and photography contest, especially the work day where all the entries are checked for completeness and then bundled off to their preliminary judges. It takes a significant amount of time to complete for the crew. This year, things went seamlessly and we finished well ahead of schedule. A team effort is necessary to make the contest work as well as it does. The acknowledgement helps ensure those team members are lonely to come back again next year.
That said, the organization as a whole doesn't have a lot if ways of acknowledging the team effort, and it can sometimes seem like lip service from the top when they talk about how excellent we are on one hand but rarely follow through on finding ways to reward that excellence. It can be dangerous to think that the winning streak is primarily because of you, because if you engender that idea, it's going to be you they come after when the winning streak stops. And you they get mad at if you can't immediately start another streak right after the last one. Many a person's job has been removed when the company that expects them to win all the time has to deal with the fact that winning all the time is inherently highly improbable.
After all, if you could do it like that, casinos, gaming houses, and shysters playing three-card monte wouldn't be able to make enough money on your losses to keep themselves in business.
