Times/News

You have to pay the price to win ... Most important, you must pay the price to stay there ... Winning is a habit. Unfortunately, so is losing.

Legendary Green Bay Packer

Coach Vince Lombardi

Early autumn is, in many ways, my favorite time of year. As leaves turn to flame, creating unrivaled brilliance on sunny afternoons, the crisp air hints of holidays not far in the future.

Later on, most football fans around Washington will pause again for the Apple Cup. (For the record: not only are Editor Mathison and I incompatible politically, the same is true of football. He is a Cougar through and through, while I am an avid adopted Husky!)

But this change of seasons is also a poignant time of year for many. Some wish summer could linger on; others dread winter's approaching blast.

A sense of longing creeps into my life. It returned again this past Sunday; a feeling that will remain until Opening Day next spring.

Another Seattle Mariners' season has just ended and, while it was a long, losing season, it was still baseball.

Football and falling leaves, pumpkin pies and Christmas trees are grand. Yet something is missing when the boys of summer aren't playing.

Baseball, as James Earl Jones' character described the game in Field of Dreams, really is "the constant ... through the years."

A large part of this constant, I wrote last April, is the boundless optimism among baseball fans. I even suggested "a season that extends into October again is within reach" for the Mariners.

By June, most fans in Seattle knew the M's season would end at 162 games. Yet as promising young players showed their stuff in August and September, we began looking toward next year with - yes - optimism!

Five times in the 1940s and early 50s, the Brooklyn Dodgers played the New York Yankees in the World Series, and five times they lost.

"Wait until next year!" became the rallying cry of Dodger fans with each season-ending disappointment.

Then, in Game 7 of the 1955 World Series, "next year" finally came!

Brooklyn at last beat their cross-town rival - and I lost 14 bets on the Yankees (all for milkshakes at 25 cents each - my mother was furious with me)!

Maybe that's why, with another display of unbridled optimism, I added last April, "Some [Marniner's fans] can't help but wonder if maybe, just maybe, 2005 is that legendary 'next year.'"

Thank goodness I didn't bet milkshakes - or money - on that long shot.

Yet, as a song from the musical Damn Yankees encourages us, "You've gotta have hope! Musn't sit around and mope. Nuthin' half as bad as it may appear, wait'll next year and hope."

The magic of 1995, which saved baseball in Seattle, is now a distant memory; the energy of 116 wins in 2001 has ebbed in back-to-back 90-loss seasons.

But the sentiment of that song rings true as M's fans now wait for next year - with hope.

That's baseball ... and that's life.

Next year's Mariners will "have to pay the price to win," to get back to .500 baseball and then play even better.

Coach Lombardi understood that both winning and losing are habits not only in football but in all walks of life. His commitment to excellence and to victory also applies to baseball - and any other worthy endeavor.

So focused, so hard hitting are these words that I invoked Coach Lombardi's challenge while speaking to Highline-area Republicans last summer, noting they must pay a price to effect significant political change locally.

This same principle applies to our personal lives, both as individuals and when we come together as a community.

Putting hope into action with the effort to excel makes all the difference, season after season.

Yet for now, let's hope the Seahawks brighten our autumn.

And as fall turns to winter, like Hall of Fame shortstop Rogers Hornsby did, we'll be looking out the window waiting for spring!

Ralph Nichols' views are his own, and do not necessarily represent those of Robinson Newspapers. Nichols can be reached at newsdesk@robinsonnews.com, or 206-444-4873