By Devon Birdsong | Pounding The Rock (PtR), 2025-01-10 07:10:24
由生成式人工智能翻译，译文内容可能不准确或不完整，以原文为准。
有志者，事竟成
1976年，莫里·威尔斯(Maury Wills)出版了他的第一本书。
这本书名为《如何窃取锦旗》，是威尔斯关于如何扭转糟糕和表现不佳的棒球队的宣言。在书中，威尔斯大胆断言，他可以在四个赛季的执教中将任何一支垫底球队变成冠军。
威尔斯一直想成为一名棒球教练，在退役后没有收到任何真正的邀请后，他希望通过公开阐述他对如何打造一支冠军球队的想法来帮助自己。
有趣的是，这真的奏效了。虽然棒球界的许多人对威尔斯自夸的说法嗤之以鼻，但也有一些人对此很感兴趣，其中一些人拥有职业棒球队。
虽然我们可以就绝望的人如何习惯做出同样绝望的决定进行 lengthy 的讨论，但事实是，由于他的书，莫里·威尔斯得到了美国职业棒球大联盟的两份工作邀请。
第一份是来自旧金山巨人的一年期合同，威尔斯认为这份合同期限太短，是对他的侮辱，于是拒绝了。然而，第二份是来自新成立的西雅图水手队的两年期合同，威尔斯抓住了这个机会。
于是，美国职业棒球大联盟历史上最 bizarre 的教练生涯之一开始了。
1980年的水手队并不好。莫里·威尔斯想要一支垫底球队，他如愿以偿了。作为一支新的扩张球队，他们的天赋不足，但在他们之前的教练带领下，他们创造了球队胜场纪录（67场），所以他们也并非完全没有天赋。
威尔斯将他 lofty 的棒球理论付诸实践的机会来了，在他执教球队的第一场比赛后，威尔斯向当地记者宣称，水手队有很多“迷茫的天赋”，而他的工作就是消除这种迷茫。
到月底，威尔斯永久性地将他的先发中外野手胡安·贝尼克斯(Juan Beniquez)排除在首发阵容之外，然后试图对他进行罚款和停赛，因为他没有替补上场，而就在几天前，威尔斯还告诉他，他再也不会为威尔斯打球了。
在一周左右的时间里，威尔斯一直在抱怨他的球员。他指责他们软弱，缺乏精神韧性，不能直观地理解他日益 confusing 的指示。
接近赛季末，水手队似乎战胜了一切困难，取得了六连胜。然后他们又连输了最后八场比赛。
到了冬季会议，情况并没有好转。在赛季结束后的第一次新闻发布会上，威尔斯向记者吹嘘了他的新中外野手莱昂·罗伯茨(Leon Roberts)的天赋和渴望。
如果不是罗伯茨最近被交易到德州游骑兵队，这本来可能是一个积极的进展。
尴尬的威尔斯转而宣称他将为球队带来真正的纪律。他制定了严格的训练计划，每天从早上9点到下午4点进行训练。晚上他会花2-3个小时讲解基本原理。他宣称球队会全力以赴赢得每场季前春训比赛，就好像这是生死攸关的事情一样。
等到他的球队进入春训时，他们已经筋疲力尽了。他们输掉了17场春季表演赛。记者彼得·甘蒙斯(Peter Gammons)公开打赌，威尔斯将是1981年第一个被解雇的教练。
威尔斯执教了24场比赛，于5月6日被解雇。总而言之，他执教的时间还不到一个完整的赛季。他的战绩是26胜56负，在当时是非临时教练中最差的。
根据当时水手队随队记者史蒂夫·鲁德曼(Steve Rudman)的描述，到他被解雇时，威尔斯已经：
- 意外地排出了一个由两名三垒手和没有中外野手的阵容。
- 为了选择一名代打而将比赛暂停了10多分钟。
- 在意识到没有替补投手热身的情况下撤下了他的先发投手。
- 两次吹嘘一名已经不在球队名单上的球员。
- 离开春训比赛中途飞往加利福尼亚。
- 离开击球练习（多次）去处理他分分合合的“精神病”女友。
- 命令场地工作人员将击球区涂得比规定长一英尺，试图让他的球队获得击球优势。（除了显而易见的事实，对方也站在同一个击球区）
- “永久地”将他的二垒手移到游击手位置，然后24小时后又将他移回二垒手位置，永久地。
（根据罗布·内耶(Rob Neyer)的说法，他在其优秀的《棒球大失误》一书中用了一整章来讲述威尔斯，这只是威尔斯的失误/滥用职权/疯狂行为的部分清单）
这和圣安东尼奥马刺队有什么关系？
事实证明，赢球很难。打造一支胜利之师也很难。
如果威尔斯只是一个极具说服力和热情，并且被赋予球队控制权的球迷，这本身就是一个相当有趣的故事，但莫里·威尔斯是一位棒球巨星。
他曾是MVP。他是三次世界大赛冠军的重要贡献者。他是第一个在一个赛季中盗垒100次的美国职业棒球大联盟球员，尽管他的速度与里奇·亨德森(Rickey Henderson)、文斯·科尔曼(Vince Coleman)或卢·布罗克(Lou Brock)（他们后来都打破了他的纪录）相差甚远。作为一名球员，他仍然在考虑进入棒球名人堂。
事实证明，即使你是专家，赢球（和执教）也真的非常非常难。
当然，威尔斯从未在大联盟级别执教过（尽管他曾带领一支墨西哥联赛球队获得冠军），这可能对他没有帮助。当然，他没有像维克多·文班亚马(Victor Wembanyama)这样的棒球天才，也没有像霍尔特家族(Holt Family)这样的老板集团（乔治·阿吉罗斯(George Argyros)的个人座右铭“耐心是留给失败者的”被印在一块牌子上，挂在他国王穹顶的办公室里）。
当然，为了减轻工作的压力，威尔斯转向了玻利维亚鼻屎糖的乐趣，这可能也于事无补。（我每篇文章只允许开一个可卡因玩笑，老实说，要让它们看起来自然越来越难了）
然而，威尔斯的故事提醒我们所有人，执教究竟有多难，而不是看起来有多容易和/或简单。同时也评论了事情可能会变得更糟。
威尔斯的球队在他手下输掉了近70%的比赛，而这远在现代摆烂的概念出现之前。没有他，他们赢得了近50%的比赛。
他们之前的教练曾带领红袜队赢得过锦旗。聘用威尔斯（以及解雇达雷尔·约翰逊(Darrell Johnson)）是对一支尚未准备好获胜的球队的草率反应。威尔斯积极地让他的球队变得更糟。
然而，这并不是因为缺乏知识。他以前的球员和教练都声称，他们发现他是棒球界知识最渊博的人之一。我想很难知道是什么让一个人成为一个真正伟大的教练。我想你看到它的时候就知道了。
23年后，威尔斯的知识将带来另一个世界大赛冠军，并打破棒球史上最大的“诅咒”之一。戴夫·罗伯茨(Dave Roberts)将自己更擅长盗垒归功于威尔斯，当纽约洋基队试图以3-0的总比分淘汰波士顿红袜队时，他完成了美国职业棒球大联盟历史上最关键的一次盗垒。
这导致了一次关键的反击，并带来了令人难以置信的四连胜。
21年后，同一位戴夫·罗伯茨将带领洛杉矶道奇队在他任期内第二次获得世界大赛冠军，对手也是纽约洋基队。
我不确定我们从昨晚的失利中学到了什么。我们已经知道马刺队正在低迷，他们缺乏深度，他们本赛季伤病不断，而且经常缺少首发球员。我们已经知道他们的替补大个子在面对顶级球员时都无法真正上场，而且他们至少还差一名球员（以及一些发展）才能成为一支稳定的力量。
我们已经知道，他们是由一位缺乏经验的教练带领的，并且失去了他们30多个赛季的指导方向。
我想，就像罗伯茨一样，我们学到的东西可能要等到合适的时机才会显现出来。也许那个时机还没有到来。也许所有这些问题的解决方案是我们现在还看不到的。
我敢打赌，解决方案肯定不是可卡因。（好吧，我关于一个笑话的说法是骗人的)
要点
- 我想我们必须再次谈谈德文·瓦塞尔(Devin Vassell)。我很喜欢这个孩子，但他的低迷状态开始变得越来越令人担忧。在过去的10场比赛中，他的投篮命中率为37%，三分球命中率为22%。让他看起来更糟的是，他还在投更多的球，似乎是想通过投篮来摆脱困境。在过去的4场比赛中，他分别出手了16、20、14和17次，所有比赛的命中率都很糟糕（尽管他昨晚终于在9次出手中三分球命中率超过了30%）。如果瓦塞尔能打出出色的防守来弥补这一点，这种事情可能会被抵消，但他在防守端的活跃度也不稳定，我开始认为他需要再次回到替补席上（他在替补席上打出了一些他今年最好的表现）。米奇·约翰逊(Mitch Johnson)似乎决心让他和首发球员一起打球，这与索汉的不投篮的困境相结合，相对于今年早些时候的阵容，极大地阻碍了首发阵容的进攻。在理想情况下，两名球员都应该首发，但除非其中一人（或两人）开始成为投篮威胁，否则球场空间将会很糟糕，而 against 像密尔沃基这样的球队，这根本行不通。
- 同样的情况可能也需要发生在新秀杰出的斯蒂芬·卡斯尔(Stephon Castle)身上，尽管他还有其他优点，但从几个指标来看，他是本赛季NBA最差的射手之一。虽然很有前途，但卡斯尔还没有准备好独自控球，他和特雷·琼斯(Tre Jones)在控球后卫位置上以及和克里斯·保罗(Chris Paul)一起打得一样好。鉴于这是一年中新秀开始感到疲惫的时候，让他对抗其他第二阵容以增强他的信心并让他每场比赛多休息几分钟可能不是一个坏主意。休息不会有什么坏处，因为卡斯尔正在马刺队的新秀出场时间历史记录上飞速前进。看到他得到很多上场时间是很棒的——只要他的身体准备好了。
- 说我老套，说我无趣，说我来自特拉华州的乡巴佬，但我 不喜欢 那些备用球衣。嘘！胆小鬼，把节日色彩带回来！
今晚的主题曲：
埃里克·克莱普顿(Eric Clapton)的Cocaine
点击查看原文：What we learned from the Spurs loss to the Bucks
What we learned from the Spurs loss to the Bucks
Where there’s a Wills, there’s a way
In 1976, Maury Wills published his first book.
Entitled How to Steal a Pennant, it served as Wills’ manifesto for turning bad and underachieving baseball teams around, and in it, Wills made the bold assertion that he could take any last-place team and turn them into champions in just four seasons of coaching.
Wills had wanted to be a baseball manager for some time, and after receiving no real offers after his retirement as a player hoped to help his case by publicly illustrating his thoughts on how to build a title-winning team.
The funny thing is it actually worked. While many in baseball rolled their eyes at the braggadocio of Wills’ claim, there were some who were intrigued, and some of those people owned professional baseball teams.
And while we could certainly have a lengthy conversation about how desperate people have a habit of making equally desperate decisions, the fact remains that as a result of his book Maury Wills was offered two jobs in Major League Baseball.
The first, a one-year contract offer from The San Francisco Giants, insulted Wills in its brevity, and was turned down. The second, however, was a two-year offer from the somewhat newly minted Seattle Mariners, and Wills jumped at the chance.
And so began one of the most bizarre managerial careers in MLB history.
The 1980 Mariners were not good. Maury Wills had asked for a last-place team, and he’d gotten one. As a new expansion team they were thin on talent, but they had set the franchise record for wins (67) under their previous manager, so they were not totally devoid of it either.
The chance for Wills to put his lofty baseball theories to the test was at hand, and after his first game with the team, Wills declared to the local reporters that the Mariners had a lot of “confused talent”, and that it was his job to unconfuse it.
By the end of the month Wills had permanently benched his starting center-fielder Juan Beniquez, then attempted to fine and suspend him for not substituting into the game, just days after Wills had told him that he’d never play for Wills again.
Within a week or so, Wills was complaining about his players. He accused them of softness, of a lack of mental toughness, of not intuitively comprehending his progressively confusing instructions.
Near the end of the season, against seemingly all odds, the Mariners went on a six-game win streak. They then lost their last eight games in a row.
By the Winter Meetings, things had not improved. In his first press junket since the end of the season, Wills bragged to reporters about the talent and desire of his new center-fielder, Leon Roberts.
This probably would have been a positive development if not for the fact that Roberts had recently been traded to the Texas Rangers.
Embarrassed, Wills pivoted to a declaration that he would bring real discipline to the team. He set a strict training schedule, with practice every day from 9am to 4pm. He lectured in the evenings for 2-3 hours on the fundamentals. He declared that the team would play every preseason spring training game to win, as if it were life-and-death.
By the time his team made it to spring training, they were exhausted. They lost 17 spring exhibition games. Reporter Peter Gammons publicly wagered that Wills would be the first manager fired in 1981.
Wills lasted 24 games and was fired on May 6th. All-in-all, he coached less than a full season. His record was 26–56, at that time the worst for a non-interim manager.
According to the account of then Mariners beat reporter Steve Rudman, by the time he was fired Wills had:
- Accidentally made a lineup that consisted of two 3rd basemen and no center-fielder.
- Held a game up for 10+ minutes trying to pick a pinch-hitter.
- Removed his starting pitcher before realizing that no relievers were warmed up.
- Twice bragged about a player no longer on the roster.
- Left the middle of a spring training game to fly to California.
- Left batting practice (multiple times) to deal with his on/off ‘psycho’ girlfriend.
- Ordered the grounds crew to paint the batters boxes a foot longer than regulation in an attempt to give his team a batting advantage. (Outside of the obvious fact that the opposition also stood in the the same batting boxes)
- “Permanently” moved his 2nd baseman to shortstop, then 24 hours later moved him back to 2nd base, permanently.
(Per Rob Neyer, who dedicated an entire chapter to Wills in his excellent Big Book of Baseball Blunders, this is only a partial list of Wills’ blunders/abuses/insanity)
And what does this have to do with the San Antonio Spurs?
Well, it turns out that winning is hard. Building winning teams is also hard.
This would be a pretty funny anecdote in-and-of-itself if Wills had just been some sort of highly persuasive and passionate fan who was given control of a team, but Maury Wills was a baseball great.
He was a former MVP. He was a critically contributing three-time World Series Champion. He was the first MLB player to steal 100 bases in a season, in spite of having nothing approximating the speed of Rickey Henderson, Vince Coleman, or Lou Brock (all of whom would later break his record). He is still in consideration for the Baseball Hall of Fame as a player.
It turns out that even when you’re an expert, winning (and coaching) is really, really hard.
Sure, it probably didn’t help that Wills had never managed at the Major League level (though he had managed a Mexican League team to a title). And sure, he did not have anything approaching a baseball equivalent to Victor Wembayama, or an ownership group remotely resembling The Holt Family (George Argyros’ personal motto ‘Patience is for losers’ was printed on a sign hung in his office in the Kingdome).
And sure, it probably didn’t help that to lessen the pressure of the job, Wills turned to the pleasures of Bolivian Booger Sugar. (I’m only allowed one cocaine joke per article, and honestly, it’s getting harder to make them look organic)
However, Wills’ story is a reminder to us all about precisely how hard coaching is, as opposed to how easy and/or straightforward it might look. As well as a commentary on how much worse things could be.
Wills’ team lost almost 70% of their games under him, and this was well before the modern concept of tanking. They won almost 50% of their games without him.
The manager they’d had before him had won a pennant with the Red Sox. Wills’ hiring (and Darrell Johnsons’ firing) had been rash reactions to a team that wasn’t quite ready to win yet. Wills actively made his team worse.
And yet, it wasn’t for a lack of knowledge. His former players and coaches claimed they found him to be one of the most knowledgeable people in baseball. I suppose it’s hard to know what makes someone a truly great coach. I suppose you know it when you see it.
Twenty-three years later Wills’ knowledge would result in another World Series title, and the breaking of one of baseball greatest ‘curses’. Dave Roberts, who credited Wills with teaching him how to better steal bases, stole perhaps the most critical base in MLB history as the New York Yankees attempted to close out the Boston Red Sox with a 3-0 series lead.
It led to a critical rally that led to an improbable four straight wins.
Twenty-one years after that, the same Dave Roberts would manage the Los Angeles Dodgers to their 2nd World Series title under his tenure, also against the New York Yankees.
I’m not sure what we learned from last night’s loss. We already knew that the Spurs were slumping, that they lacked depth, that they’ve been pretty banged up this season and have been missing starters more often than not. We already knew that none of their backup big men are really playable against top-end talent, and that they’re at least one player (and a couple of developments) away from being a consistent force.
We already knew that they’re being led by an inexperienced coach and are without their guiding compass of 30+ seasons.
I suppose it’s possible that, like Roberts, we learned things that have yet to reveal themselves until the right time. Maybe that time just isn’t here yet. Maybe the solution to all of these problems is something we can’t yet see.
I’ll bet the solution’s not cocaine though. (Ok, I lied about the one joke thing)
Takeaways
- I think we have to talk about Devin Vassell again. I’m a big fan of this kid, but his slump is starting to get more concerning. Over the last 10 games he’s shooting 37% from their field, and 22% from three. What’s making it look even worse is that he’s also taking even more shots in what appears to be an attempt to shoot himself out of it. Over the last 4 games he’s taken 16, 20, 14, and 17 shots, all at atrocious shooting percentages (though he did finally crack 30% from three last night, on 9 shots). This sort of thing might be offset if Vassell was playing outstanding defense to make up for it, but his activity on that end has been inconsistent as well, and I’m starting to think he needs to come off the bench again (where he had some of his best performances of the year). Mitch Johnson seems determined to play him with the starters, which when combined with Sochan’s non-shooting woes, greatly stagnates the starting lineup offensively relative to lineups earlier in the year. In an ideal world, both players would start, but until one (or both) begin to serve as shooting threats, that spacing is going to be ugly, and against teams like Milwaukee, that just won’t work.
- The same may need to occur for rookie standout Stephon Castle, who in spite of other merits, ranks as one of the NBA’s worst shooters this season by a couple of measures. Though promising, Castle is not ready to run the point alone, and plays just as well with Tre Jones at the point as he does with Chris Paul. Seeing as this is the time of year that rookies start to wear down a bit, it might not be bad idea to play him against other 2nd units to give him a confidence boost and a couple extra minutes of rest per game. The rest won’t hurt, as Castle is blazing his way up the Spurs’ all-time rookie minutes list. Seeing him get a lot of play is great — as long as his body is ready for it.
- Call me lame, call me unfun, call me a square from Delaware, but I do not like those alternate uniforms. Boo! Bring back the Fiesta colors, cowards!
Playing You Out – The Theme Song of the Evening:
Cocaine by Eric Clapton
By Devon Birdsong, via Pounding The Rock