Baseball
fans across Boston celebrated in riotous joy Wednesday night at the final out
of game six of the 2013 World Series. For the third time in a decade, they have
become the national champions. The media frenzy capped off the win with
commentaries and analysis of players, managers, coaches, umps, and any other
topics and angles they could find.
Yet a
disturbing undertone hummed beneath the usual statistics and congratulatory
numbers repeated in the news and splashed across our computer screens. In
describing the winners, the losers were held up to scrutiny as well. Not
necessarily just the St. Louis Cardinals, either.
One
popular memory dredged up for review was the
last time Boston played a game six at Shea Stadium. In 1986, the Red Sox were
in a ‘win the game or lose the championship’ situation against the Mets. In a
disastrous mistake, Bill Buckner failed to make a rather routine play, allowing
a ground ball to roll between his ankles. Boston lost the game and the
championship, and Bill Buckner lost his outstanding reputation.
In his
20-year career, Buckner participated in 2,700 games, won a batting title, and
played in All-Star games. But mention his name to baseball fans across the
country, and what will they remember? Buckner’s mistake.
Titles
like the World Series are never won or lost by one person. A whole team is
responsible for the position in which they find themselves during a
championship run. But, when a team fails in such as way as the Red Sox did in
1986, the fans often need a scapegoat. Poor old Buckner just happened to find
himself in the crosshairs.
In
Wednesday night’s game, Cardinal’s rookie pitcher Michael Wacha took the blame
for the devastating loss. Wacha had been a superhero, a young kid who leveled
Boston in game two, and whose postseason stats astonished even the most
seasoned fans. But by the morning after the World Series loss, pundits clamored
to figure out “What happened?” as they pointed fingers at his disappointing
performance and burdened him with their defeat.
In
today’s world of internet immediacy, one mistake can be magnified until
reputations are decided by skewed or inaccurate information. Centel Media™ is an online reputation
management company who can protect your image and your name from a bad call.
Let us make sure that you have what you need to level the playing field in your
own high-stakes game.
Chris
MacEachern,
Creative
Writer,
Matthew
Shaffer,
Editor-in-Chief,