👀 Why Winning Doesn’t Always Cut It

Sometimes winning sets you up for a shot at greatness and sometimes being second best isn’t quite enough. [View in browser]( [FOX SPORTS INSIDER WITH MARTIN ROGERS] In today’s FOX Sports Insider with Martin Rogers: The Los Angeles Dodgers are the latest example of how winning doesn’t always cut it in sports ... we take a look at the Chargers’ new attitude and the Cowboys’ new defensive star ... and Kyle Schwarber has a must-see reaction following his home run against the Yankees. “When you’re in professional sports, winning is the only thing that matters,” said Leo Durocher, the controversial but downright effective manager of four different Major League Baseball teams. Vince Lombardi, the sage of professional football coaches, believed winning wasn’t everything. “But making the effort to win is.” Mid-20th century UCLA football head coach “Red” Sanders agreed with Lombardi, with a twist. “Winning isn’t everything,” Sanders said. “It’s the only thing.” But what about when even winning just isn’t enough? At times during sports’ evolving modern history the quirks and foibles of the way professional leagues arrange themselves can lead to situations where teams that spent a lot of time winning end up whining – with some justification – after being placed in an unfavorable dilemma. The Los Angeles Dodgers are the latest example of how winning doesn’t always cut it. The 106 wins Dave Roberts’ team accumulated between opening day and Wednesday night’s win-or-go-home wild-card showdown with the St. Louis Cardinals was good enough to be tied for the fifth best record achieved in Major League Baseball since the turn of the 21st century. [STORY IMAGE 1] Problem is, it was only good enough to be the second-best team in Major League Baseball this year, and the only team ahead of them, the San Francisco Giants, just so happened to reside in the same division, the National League West. And so the Dodgers must defend their right to avoid an early vacation over just nine innings at Chavez Ravine, while other division winners that managed 18, 13 and 11 wins fewer can sit tight, with a place in the division series already assured. Remarkably, the Dodgers have caught some ill-informed criticism for being unable to overhaul the Giants, to the annoyance of Roberts. “It’s the people that have never played at a high level that think they know what they don’t,” Roberts told reporters. “People who share that view are clueless and haven’t been in the grind to understand what it takes to win 100 games in the major league season.” [STORY IMAGE 2] There is a precedent for teams putting together spectacular campaigns yet not winning their division. It happened to the 2003 Giants and the 2001 Oakland Athletics, who came unstuck to the Yankees in the ALDS, with Derek Jeter’s backhand flip to nab Jeremy Giambi at the plate providing a defining memory. It happened to the pinstripes themselves in 2018 (100 wins), finishing eight back from the Boston Red Sox. In the National Football League, seven wins has been good enough to reach the playoffs three times and 9-7 good enough to launch a Super Bowl-winning run (2011 New York Giants), but so too has 11-5 twice been insufficient to even reach the postseason. That happened to the 1985 Denver Broncos, who failed to reach the playoffs courtesy of losing a tiebreaker to the New England Patriots and in 2008, when the 11-5 Patriots were on the receiving end, losing a three-way tie with the Miami Dolphins and Baltimore Ravens to miss out in the season Matt Cassel filled in for an injured Tom Brady. “We can walk out of this locker room with our hats high,” Pats center Dan Koppen said that day. “Things happen, and you’ve got to deal with it.” [STORY IMAGE 3] Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympic movement, said “the most important thing is not winning but taking part,” but as much as we love the Olympics, that notion doesn’t really fly in American sports. Heck, the word “winningest” wouldn’t even be a word without sports, the good folks at the Oxford English Dictionary and at Merriam-Webster both attributing its invention to American athletic pages of the 1970s. It’s fun to win and not much fun when winning doesn’t get you to where you wanted to be. It’s a mixed feeling, with pride in the excellence, yet disbelieving resignation that the prize remained elusive. In 2019, famed English Premier League soccer team Liverpool hadn’t won the title for 29 years, but pieced together a spectacular haul of 97 points over 38 games, the third-most in EPL history. Not good enough, as it turned out, with Manchester City finishing on top with 98. In college football, it seems barely feasible these days for the SEC to be left out of national title consideration but consider that in 2004, Auburn, the 13-0 SEC champion, did not get to play for a championship after being ranked third in the BCS standings behind USC and Oklahoma. [STORY IMAGE 4] In college hoops in 1974, No. 4 Maryland lost an overtime thriller to North Carolina State in the ACC Tournament, thereby missing out on the NCAA Tournament, promoting change to wider expansion beyond conference champions only. Some things never change, in that everyone still wants to win, or at least wishes they were in a position to do so. Sometimes winning sets you up for a shot at greatness and sometimes being second best isn’t quite enough, which is where the Dodgers find themselves now, having won more than almost everyone, yet needing to win again immediately to survive. [STORY IMAGE 5] Here’s what others have said ... Jake Mintz, FOX Sports: “A Dodgers loss Wednesday night would be a baseball disaster, a blatantly unfair end to a spectacular season.” Justin Turner, Los Angeles Dodgers: “We’ve had years in the past where we've clinched the division pretty early in the season and then gone through some lulls. There was some concern about the way we were getting ready going into the playoffs. Obviously, that wasn't the case this year.” Brandon Marcello, 247Sports.com: “Auburn may be the football program that is most responsible for the death of the BCS.” [IN OTHER WORDS] - It all hinged on one key play, but in the end, the Boston Red Sox’s best players were simply better than the Yankees, [FOX Sports MLB Writer Jake Mintz writes](. - The Chargers have a new attitude, the Cowboys have a new star on defense, and more. [FOX Sports NFL Analyst Peter Schrager has the story.]( - Led by the feisty Howie Long and eccentric Ted Hendricks, the 1970s and ‘80s Raiders were mavericks, [Joe Posnanski has the story](. [THE INTERNET IS UNDEFEATED] [THE INTERNET IS UNDEFEATED]( When this year’s MLB trade deadline came around, there was a lot of focus on the Los Angeles Dodgers acquiring Trea Turner and Max Scherzer from the Washington Nationals, and rightfully so. Three was also a ton of attention surrounding the likes of Craig Kimbrel (to the White Sox), Javier Baez (to the Mets), and Anthony Rizzo and Joey Gallo (to the Yankees). But one name that seemed to sneak under the radar was Kyle Schwarber, who was acquired by the Boston Red Sox at the deadline and has proven to be a perfect fit. Schwarber delivered for his new team in Tuesday night’s AL wild-card game, crushing a 435-foot home run off Yankees ace Gerrit Cole in the third inning as Boston went on to beat New York 6-2 and advance to the ALDS where they will face the Tampa Bay Rays. Check out this slow-mo video of Schwarber’s homer and his must-see reaction. You can tell that he knew it was gone the second he hit it, and he made sure to let the crowd know it. This is what postseason baseball is all about. We love it! [VIEWER'S GUIDE] St. Louis Cardinals at Los Angeles Dodgers (TBS, 8:10 p.m. ET) Adam Wainwright takes the mound for the St. Louis Cardinals, who take on Max Scherzer and the Los Angeles Dodgers in an NL Wild-Card Game. Las Vegas Aces at Phoenix Mercury (ESPN, 10 p.m. ET) A’ja Wilson and the Las Vegas Aces go up against Brittany Griner and the Phoenix Mercury in a WNBA semifinal matchup. [BET OF THE DAY] [BET OF THE DAY] Odds provided by [FOX Bet]( Penn State at Iowa: Iowa -2.5 Per FOX Sports Betting Analyst Sam Panayotovich: Defense, defense, defense. Kirk Ferentz has an absolute monster defensive front, which has made life hell on opposing quarterbacks. Just ask Maryland's Taulia Tagovailoa, who tossed five interceptions last week due to the Hawkeye pressure. My numbers have Iowa as a five-point favorite, so I'm not exactly sure why the line is shorter than a field goal. Kinnick Stadium is a tough place to play, and Iowa isn't receiving the respect they deserve. I'll happily lay the short chalk (-2.5) before a potential move to -3. [WHAT THEY SAID] “They told me I couldn't. That's why I did.” — Michael Jordan [FOLLOW FOX SPORTS] [Twitter]( [Facebook]( [YouTube]( [Instagram]( Download FOX Sports App: [Fire TV]( [Roku]( [Google Play]( [App Store]( [Fire TV]( [Roku]( [App Store]( [Google Play]( Also available on these devices: [fireTV | AppleTV | ROKU | Google Chromecast | XBOX ONE | SAMSUNG Smart TV] [fireTV | AppleTV | ROKU | Google Chromecast | XBOX ONE | SAMSUNG Smart TV] Trademark & Copyright Notice: ™ and © 2021 Fox Media LLC and FOX Sports Interactive Media, LLC. All rights reserved. Please do not reply to this message. If you do not wish to receive emails like this in the future, please [unsubscribe](. FOX Sports respects your privacy. Click [here]( to view our Privacy Policy. Fox.com Business & Legal Affairs - Manager Digital Media P.O. Box 900 Beverly Hills, California 90213-0900