A Culture of Winning

It's so different, watching the Patriots.

The Ravens gave it their best shot, and even led for a bit, but was that game ever really in doubt? At one point the Pats were at the goal, and had to score twice. Tom Brady took it in himself on a swimmer's dive that even looked a little dangerous.

Bill Belichick, Brady (and, I guess, the Krafts) have managed to create something few teams have: a culture of winning. The Steelers have it; the Montreal Canadiens used to have it; the Lakers have it; and the Celtics have it. It's rare. It's not that such teams always win, but they win a lot, and when they do lose it's an aberration that prompts soul-searching, sometimes ruthless trades, and corrective action.

The Red Sox don't have it, and maybe they never will. Now here's the irony: they have soul-searching, ruthless trades, and corrective action, but it doesn't really matter. If the culture doesn't change, the losing continues.

On one hand, one baseball team has the all-time consecutive sellout record. One baseball team has a long history and rabid fans. One team has the second highest payroll, a mile ahead of number three. One team has the most powerful brand in baseball.

Stuart Layne, president of Seven2 Sports Marketing, a marketing and brand consultancy in Andover, Mass., agrees. Layne, who was the executive vice president of marketing and sales for the Boston Celtics for nine seasons and worked in a similar capacity for the Seattle Mariners, is a Yankees fan but acknowledges the power of the Red Sox brand. "In all my days in sports and as a sports fan, I've never seen a team have an impact on the psyche of a community like the Red Sox," Layne says. "You could put a Red Sox logo on a pile of leaves and it would sell."

On the other hand, in the immortal words of Roger Angell in Ken Burns's Baseball, "Baseball isn't about winning. It's about losing."

So can a baseball team create a culture of winning? One has, and they play in the Bronx.

It might be nice, to be watching your team complete a World Series sweep for the second time in four years. and not have your heart jump in your mouth just because some guy sent a Papelbon pitch to the warning track.

But I think I'd get bored.