Teams

This will be a short message due to the Giants’ and the San Francisco World Series parade. What do you do when a city invites a million people to a party and they all show up?  Wow.

World Series Crowd and Market Street

This was a day that, if you weren’t into crowds, was best not to be there. We wouldn’t miss it for the world. Up early, BART in, watch the stars queue up in fancy convertibles and, like in the days of Rome, march (or roll) triumphantly up Market Street to the steps of city hall to the cheers of their fellow citizens. All that was missing was the vanquished paraded before the victors (sorry Detroit).

But what really caught my attention was not just the team but also included in the parade were the front office, the back office, the trailer full of player’s coaches and all the support staff needed to make this team winners. From Larry Baer to Brian Sabean, from the great Willies, Mays and McCovey, and recent players like J.T. Snow and Will Clark. And of course Bruce Bochy. 

There are also almost three hundred members of this team that help to make this success happen. Sure there are twenty-five members of the “World Series Team,” but it was also the team that stands in the near shadows that find them, support them, and help them to be the best. This year they showed San Francisco and the world they, the Giants, are the best in baseball.

On the podium in front of city hall the fans were not forgotten, player after player point to the millions standing before these conquering heroes that it was they, the fans, that pushed them to success. We see a team win, not just the twenty-five, but the hundreds of staff and millions of fans that helped to make it real. A team.

Writers hide in their garrets and studies, dark bedrooms and well-appointed offices scribbling and polishing words and stories, often alone and with their characters wandering about the room pushing and pulling a story to its end. Structure, style, prose, and dialog intertwine and swell to conclusion. Then it’s done, not unlike the pitcher working on a slider or a slurb, pitch after pitch, till satisfied. Like the young kid with McCovey on his shoulder, watching swing after swing, till it is as effortless as sliding silk over a sharp blade. Swoosh.

But it is the team that wins, not the slider or the swoosh. And for a writer it is the team that makes his words successful. Editors, coaches, agents, cover artists, book builders, printers, publishers, marketers, publicists, shippers, and bookstores. It is even iBook, Amazon, Smashwords, and even word-of-mouth. They all have to believe in the words so that the team can make it a success.

These are difficult times for writers. Not to create but to sell, to hit the one over the fences, to drive in the runs needed to win. That’s tough, damn tough, just ask the Giants. A good writer needs a strong team to become a winner, to hit one over the fence, hell even to hit a bloop single, a dying quail, a Texas leaguer, anything out of the infield to drive in a run.

Find a successful writer and you will find, like the 2012 World Series winners, the San Francisco Giants, a well developed and successful team.

More Later . . . . .