Enjoy today!

I've always wondered what it's like for the visiting team when they play a game in the World Series champs' home park the day their rings are being handed out.

There's jealousy, obviously, along with, perhaps, an extra helping of resolute determination (to be repeatedly redundant). The St. Louis Cardinals will probably have a few thoughts today like...

"That's going to be **US** this year!"

"If they did it, why can't we?"

"...did I lock my keys in my car? And boy, those rings sure are shiny."

I've never been a fan of the notion any particular team just "knows what it takes to win" -- I think every team starts off every game trying to win, and some kind of mix of execution, talent, and luck will determine a winner. All the labels we like to heap on teams usually come after the fact, while folks try to figure out exactly why this team won and the other didn't.

Personally, I don't think it's ever quite as complex as we make it out to be -- one team was better on this day, so they won. I can believe that David Eckstein is as scrappy a ballplayer as they come, sure, but if the situation is he's got to get a hit vs. Jonathan Papelbon in the 9th inning to win a game, I'm going to place my bet on the skill of Papelbon over the pluck of Eckstein every day and twice on Sundays, and I'd be smart to do so.

But, of course, Eckstein would always have a chance, however slim, and he's going to try his hardest -- and he just might do it, too. That's the beauty of the game, to me, and that's why numbers and stats appeal to me (although not to the Sabermetric level).

Each time a guy steps to the plate, the odds are against him getting a hit.

Each time a pitcher gets into some kind of jam, like runners on 2nd and 3rd with no outs, the odds are against him getting out of the inning unscathed.

Yet, they try, and sometimes they succeed.

Last season, the Giants tried and they succeeded, and today they'll receive a physical manifestation of that effort in the form of a really shiny, expensive ring. After the rings are handed out, they'll play a baseball game vs. the Cardinals where both teams will be determined to win, and one of them will.

Lather, rinse, repeat. Plate appearance by plate appearance, inning by inning, game by game, until at the end of the season we look around and perhaps, just maybe, many will point to the Giants again and say something like...

"Boy, they just know what it takes to win!"

Enjoy today!