Rambling On About My Glory Days: A Win That Did Not Feel Like a Win

Following up on my previous post about an awesome experience our Triple-A level Albuquerque Dukes team had when we played our parent team, the Los Angeles Dodgers. As you will recall from that post, the 11th best minor league team of all time was rolling along in the major league strike season of 1981. Because of the extended strike, our team was able to stay totally focused on our schedule with no regard to being called up to the major league team. Besides, we were talented and having a blast. Winning most of the time really promotes fun and good team chemistry, as you would presume. When the strike finally ended, the Dodgers decided to have the Dukes flown to Los Angeles for one game to get the big league team some game experience before the resumption of the regular or “irregular” season. My Duke team was so psyched up and was determined to show the Dodger front office how good we were.

Before telling you about the game, I want to give you an idea of the mindset of a Triple-A ballplayer. As great as it is to be able to play professional baseball, every player’s dream is to play in the big leagues, and being in Triple-A means that players are only one step away. Triple-A players feel like they are ready for the next step and deserve to get the call to the Show. When the call does not come after a period of time, players have a tendency to build up some animosity towards their employer, wondering why they haven’t been promoted. Triple-A players are so close and yet so far away all at the same time. As mentioned, because of the summer long strike our Duke team did not have this animosity going because we were glad to be playing and having some of the normal major league baseball attention given our way. These feelings changed the day the strike ended and it was back to the why am I not in the big leagues? attitude.

With that as a backdrop, this was our great opportunity. We would go to L.A. and kick the big league teams _ _ _, and show everyone how we were getting screwed by being kept in the minor leagues. Well, we won, but the 1 to 0 score did not make us feel very satisfied. After all, the big league club had been dormant for two months or so and we knew that a statement would only be made if we won big. I think it gave us an appreciation of how good those guys at the major league level were and how much more work we had to do to become big league ballplayers. Fortunately, I believe the “non-kicking” that occurred worked in our favor as many of the members of that Albuquerque Dukes used this win that didn’t feel like a win as motivation to keep working hard. Many on that Dukes’ team went on to have good major league careers, and for those that didn’t, they can always tell their grandchildren about the time they beat a major league team in a major league stadium.

Former major leaguer Jack Perconte is the author of The Making of a Hitter ( http://jackperconte.com ) and has a baseball instruction site that can be found at www.baseballcoachingtips.net . He has recently published his second book Raising an Athlete – How to Instill Confidence, Build Skills and Inspire a Love of Sport