Mulling over the end the 2004 season got me thinking about failure as a motivating element in our lives. Particularly as it applies to the creative process. Allow me to indugle myself here. First of all, do yourselves a favor and check out two first-rate articles on the Yankees: “Mythbusters” by Larry Manhken, and the latest installment of The Pinstriped Bible by Steven Goldman (oh, and look at David Pinto’s defense of Alex Rodriguez while you are at it too).

How can we view failure in a positive light? In an interview with Mike Shannon (from the book “Baseball: The Writer’s Game”), Pat Jordan explained:

I recently wrote a piece on failure for a magazine called Menís Fitness. They wanted me to write a piece on success. They said, “Well, youíve been a successful baseball player”