The Path to Glory is not paved with Fear

I guess it is only a game…right?…but seeing so many Angelenos come together for this post season in a way that we have only imagined since we last went to a World Series in 1988 made me want to get this one right. It made me hope that the Dodgers would go all out and give it their best...the way they did in that fabled season of 1988. As I left an electric Dodger Stadium after the Dodgers shut out the Cubs in game 3 to take a 2 games to 1 lead I thought we had a good chance…we had more than a good chance. We had Clayton Kershaw and Kenley Jansen ......and they didn't.

Clayton Kershaw is arguably the best pitcher to ever play baseball. If you look at his career stats so far Kershaw is certainly the most difficult pitcher to score on since the end of WWII. It's not even close. Measured against other starting pitchers whose careers started since 1945 Kerhsaw ‘s career E.R.A is light years ahead of the competition. His career e.r.a. of 2.37 is more than a 1/3 of a run better than the next best guy…Whitey Ford. It is .40 runs better than storied Sandy Koufax. For context, there is no pitcher pitching in baseball right now who has a career e.r.a. under 3.00. Kershaw is to his peers what Secretariat was to those other 12 horses in the 1973 Kentucky Derby. He might as well have been racing donkeys.

Kershaw pitched brilliantly in his last start against the Nationals and then finished up game 5 with a 2 out save to clinch a trip to the NLCS against the Cubs. Kerhsaw pitched in game 2 against the Cubs and gave up 2 singles and no runs in a 1 - 0 victory. Kershaw has won or saved 4 of the Dodgers 5 wins in the postseason. He is the best pitcher in baseball and someone the Chicago Cubs (or any other team in baseball) does not want to face.

Yet, with the series tied at 2 games all and with our last game at Dodgers stadium in this series before we go back to Chicago, Dodger manager Dave Roberts elected to leave “Secretariat” in his stall, a guy who is the highest paid player in baseball at a guaranteed 250 million over 10 years. I guess he thinks Kershaw is too delicate to pitch on 3 days rest even though he did it last week with great success. For 250 million he can (and was certainly wanting to) pitch on 3 days rest. Instead, he went with a rookie pitcher, a virtual unknown who has never won a playoff game and only pitched in one (a loss).

Clayton Kershaw got to sit this one out. He would watch the game as a spectator. If there is a non scientific and arbitrary measurement in all of sports the "4 days rest" requirement might just be it. It is as foolish as blood letting and as ridiculous as the therapeutic claims of "My Pillow". Show me the science.

In 1968, Mickey Lolich started and completed, and won all 3 of his starts, including game 7 of the World Series for the Tigers in their successful triumph against the Cardinals. He pitched 27 innings in a 7 game span. I'll leave it to the baseball experts to tell us how many days "rest" he had between starts.

Many have read about Sandy Koufax pitching on 2 days rest in the World series in 1963 and doing it heroically…with a dominating win. I remember Orel Hershiser pitching on 3 days rest and then pitching in relief on more than one occasion in the post season in 1988. He got better with every appearance. Btw, the Dodgers won that World Series, too,…in dramatic fashion. Thank the baseball Gods that Tommy LaSorda and not Dave Roberts was managing that team…

LaSorda showed the audacity to bring a player out of the dugout who could barely walk to bat in the bottom of the ninth with 2 out. He had two bad legs, but he was the best player in the league that year...the MVP. That batter’s name was Kirk Gibson. The rest is history. LaSorda did what I am quite sure most Los Angeles Dodgers fans are accustomed to and longing for….going for broke with your best, leaving it all "on the table", whether it be with risking it all with Koufax, or Fernando Valenzuela, or Orel Hershiser.…the willingness to risk being a Magnificent failure over a mediocre success.

I remember as a young Laker fan when the injured and rumored to be unavailable Willis Reed came onto the court for the New York Knicks to start the crucial game 7. The crowd erupted in Madison Square Garden. It’s a part of NBA legend.…The Lakers lost that game in large part because of the emotional impact of an injured Willis Reed.

Clayton Kershaw isn't even injured...he has pitched marvelously in 10 starts since coming off the disabled list and he has only pitched 150 innings this season.

Does anyone remember Curt Schillling pitching in the World Series for the Red Sox in 2004 with an ankle that was openly bleeding onto his sock…there were over 20 stitches under that sock….Schilling gutted that game out with rare courage and he was instrumental in the Red Sox winning their first World Series since 1918. It's the stuff that dreams are made of...Boston drank champagne after that game.

The same could be said for Madison Bumgarner of the San Francisco Giants who has pitched on short rest over the last 3 World Series wins for the Giants. People will be talking about it for years to come.

I remember in 2006 when USC was playing Texas in the BCS championship game..The Trojans faced a 4th down and 2 with about 2 minutes left in the game.. If USC got that first down they would run out the clock and win the national championship. The Trojans had the Heisman trophy winner in the backfield…the best player in all of college football. The playcaller for USC, Lane Kiffin, elected to put Reggie Bush on the bench for that fateful play. The best player in the land was in the same place and had as much impact as you and me for the most crucial play of the 2006 season. He didn’t even want to leave him in as a decoy. USC did not get those 2 yards and you can figure out how the story ended.

I don’t know Dave Roberts…he seems like a very nice guy…but I guess that he is a guy who waits a full hour after a meal before going in the water. I would bet that he is the kind of guy who saves a lot of money for retirement…he doesn’t do many extravagant things in his prime years because he wants to make sure that when he is of retirement age he will have plenty of money to live out his golden years….he trades today for tomorrow…a tomorrow that may never come…a tomorrow that is promised to no one….

We could have avoided using a rookie pitcher as a starter for any of the games of the 2016 NLCS, the first NLCS Dodgers fans have been in since 1988---by pitching Kershaw and then going with Rich Hill, the only other Dodgers starter who has not given up a run to these Cubs, for Game 6. Hill pitched 6 scoreless innings giving up only 2 feeble singles to win game 3. After all, it was Kershaw and Hill who were the starters for the two games where the Cubs went scoreless….The Cubs got only 5 hits in both of those games combined. Kerhsaw and Hill are both left handers and the Dodger rookie, Kenta Maeda is a right hander.

"Go Big or go home"….win or lose with your best…."Sing it loud and sing it strong", go as far as you can go on that tank of gas before you get out of the car and start walking. Play fearlessly.

I know it’s only a game…but the concept of tripping on glory because you were afraid of a boogeyman just doesn’t get you Championships.. Does Dave Roberts take plane flights or does he take the train just to be safe? Does he bring an umbrella with him wherever he goes on the slight chance of rain? I like Dave Roberts as a person…but not pitching Clayton Kershaw in game 5 of this NLCS was a mistake borne of irrational fear and caution. He is not the first victim of that way of thinking...and he won't be the last.

I think it could be a lesson for the larger things in life.

Food for thought….