The Cardinal Wayward

On the slippery concept of "winning culture"

Photo by Kirk Thornton on Unsplash

For a good week or two there, I thought I might weasel my way out of putting the following (true) words to (sort of) paper: the Cardinals aren’t very good.

A few mandatory disclosures before we go forward.

1. I’m from St. Louis.

2. In St. Louis, we like baseball.

3. We also like hockey!

4. And we used to like football.

5. But mainly baseball. Cardinals baseball.

Now, I promise not to dwell on the facts and figures underlying that not-very-goodness, because that would be wonky, boring, and depresso. But they’re there if you’re one to wallow.

The Cardinals have righted the ship to some extent, at least from the historic depths of their April despair. They’re alright. Below-average, competitive in a substandard division. There’s time; they could make a run yet.

But that too is part of what makes today’s topic so tough to square up: the vague yet pervasive concept of “winning culture.”

If you’re a baseball fan from anywhere that is not St. Louis, you’re both familiar with and utterly loathsome of what is called “The Cardinal Way.”

It’s what it sounds like: an organizational manifesto on success, the likes of which we see replicated all over.

“Culture” is how your buddy from college started referring to himself as a Googler.

There’s an Apple Way, a Toyota Way, a Southwest Way. There’s a Chevron Way!

There’s also a Patriot Way, and a Spurs Way, and a close cousin to both — on full display lately — Heat Culture.

That’s a lot of Ways!

If you are consistently successful in a competitive field — like, say, pro sports — then you might just have a Way or Culture succinctly explaining why. And it does make for nice shorthand. I get it.

It also makes for an easy target when things go south. Anytime one of those teams fails, the smirking “so much for XXX” Tweets follow in short order. And who could blame them?

There’s a certain kind of cultish arrogance to giving your organizational philosophy a name. People grate at that. I do too.

And that makes it vindictively rewarding when a team who holds itself aloft — like, I’m forced to admit, the Cardinals — takes an L.

I’m not above it. I cheered for Tyree’s catch; I shuddered at Edelman’s. We’ve all been there. And you know what? I'd do it again!

But all the plaudits and potshots make the true nature of a Way tough to peg.

No one wins all the time, of course. Sometimes the breaks don’t go your way, no matter how good you are. Sometimes, the breaks go your way even when you don’t deserve them.

It’s confusing. Such is the random chaos that makes sports compelling. You never know.

Way To Go

To sustain a Way, you need culture-setters to — hear me out — set your culture.

The Cardinals of my lifetime were led by guys like Albert Pujols, Yadier Molina, and Adam Wainwright, who borrowed a great deal from their longtime skipper, Tony LaRussa.

The Patriots, of course, come back to Bill Belichick. “Talent sets the floor, character sets the ceiling.” “Do your job.” “On to Cincinnati.” What is culture, really, if not blue-collar aphorisms? Let’s go! And yes, without wading into that whole debate, considerable credit is also due to the one and only Tom Brady.

With the Heat, it’s Erik Spoelstra and Pat Riley: a mastermind coach, and another mastermind coach turned mastermind exec. Those guys clearly get it, and with an alpha like Jimmy Butler — a hardo of the highest order — playing with the pitbull intensity they preach, there’s the formula.

With the Spurs, it was Gregg Popovich bringing military precision to an intently selfless style of basketball and sharing multiple decades with Tim Duncan, a superstar so even-keeled as to earn the nickname The Big Fundamental. That’ll do it.

All of these franchises have sterling reputations based largely in objective results. They’ve been empirically above average. For about two decades now, each have tended to be competent and competitive, rarely missing the playoffs and often raising the trophy.

The Patriots won six Super Bowls from 2002 to 2019. The Spurs won five NBA championships from 1999 to 2014. The Heat have three — 2006, 2012, 2013 — and have made two Finals since. The Cardinals are bringing up the rear here, with just two recent World Series wins to their name — 2006 and 2011 — and losses in 2004 and 2013.

Lucky You

Those Pats had the best run in NFL history, full stop. In the NBA, it’s a taller order to measure up to dynasties like the Celtics, Bulls, and Lakers, but for the Pop/Duncan Spurs to win titles fifteen years apart is right up there with the great accomplishments in the sport. The Heat aren’t in that same echelon, but they’re close, and the Cardinals really aren’t close, but we’re including them anyways as baseball’s most notorious Way.

Of the four, only the Heat are still chugging along, and even they had a lackluster regular season. The Patriots haven’t turned into bottom-dwellers, nor have the Cardinals quite yet, but they’ve been no one’s idea of a true contender for years now. Worse yet, the Spurs have turned into bottom-dwellers, so much so that they have the first pick in this year’s draft.

They picked a good year to suck. French phenom Victor Wembanyama is heading to San Antonio, and for the third time in franchise history, they’re picking first overall in a year headlined by a generational big man. When David Robinson’s third on the list of front-court prospects your team has picked, you’re doin’ something right.

But that begs a question that we should also ask of the group: was it The Spurs Way to be a terrible team at precisely the right moments to land historically great players three times now? Or have the Spurs just gotten extremely lucky?

No, and yes, but also no. Sort of. Can’t it be both?!

The Spurs have definitely been fortunate. But even as Hall of Famers have fallen in their lap, they’ve gone out and found plenty too — whether that was Tony Parker at pick #28 in 2001, Manu Ginobili at #57 in 1999, or a draft-night trade for Kawhi Leonard after he went #15 in 2011.

None of those guys were surefire stars coming in, but the Spurs must’ve seen something, gotten lucky, or both.

All of these franchises have had a ton of success drafting and then developing young players. Here’s your biannual reminder that Tom Brady was once an unheralded sixth-rounder with a since-improved hairline, jawline, supplement line, etc.

Lucky, or visionary? I’ll lean the former, but hey, they took him.

Dwyane Wade wasn’t much of a sleeper for the Heat, going fifth overall in a loaded 2003 class. But Miami’s always had a keen eye for the right big move, trading for Shaq the next year to secure title #1, and later signing Chris Bosh and LeBron (speaking of improved hairlines) to pair with Wade for a couple more.

Then there’s the fact that they made this year’s Finals with no fewer than four players who weren’t drafted at all — meaning guys that every single team passed over twice — getting big minutes.

Lucky, or Heat Culture? Bit of a mixed bag, I’d say.

And finally, same with the Cardinals and Albert Pujols, who went in the 13th round back in 1999 and bravely chose to just start shaving his head as he aged. It’s hard to top that, but they’ve found plenty more diamonds over the years, ranging from out-of-nowhere performers like Matt Carpenter, Tommy Edman, and Allen Craig to rising stars like Nolan Gorman and Jordan Walker.

The Birds on the Bat have been impressively competent, but baseball might be the most luck-intensive sport of them all, and the Cards have had it in “Devil Magic” spades.

Look Both Ways

With all of these players, the case could be made that they never become the best versions of themselves if they end up playing elsewhere, and I actually buy that to a certain extent. Fit, culture, and plain-old timing have a lot to do with what allows even the all-timers to climb the mountaintop.

My thing is: it cuts both ways. I would argue just as readily that none of those franchises would have had the same level of success if they hadn’t ended up with the right players at the right time.

And that illustrates why the teams we’ve listed might be fading. Did the Patriots, Spurs, and Cardinals suddenly abandon all the tenets that made them so successful? I doubt it.

My guess is they just have different and less talented rosters than they used to, periods over which multiple Hall of Famers wore their jerseys. It’s tough to replicate.

That’s not to say there isn’t some regression too, as culture-setters age or leave. Belichick seems to have lost some edge. Popovich is likely retiring soon. Molina’s retired and Wainwright’s right behind him, ceding leadership to a young Cardinals manager who looks out of his depth.

None of that helps. You need every ingredient.

But what I generally believe is that even the most incisive GM, the most dedicated team owner, and the best coach in the world can only reliably guarantee you good. That ceiling stops before great.

These are essential distinctions. It’s up to the owner to build a functioning organization, it’s up to that organization to build a roster, it’s up to the coach to put that roster in a position to succeed, and most importantly, it falls on the players to do the succeeding.

What makes a great team is when all those things align. The last ingredient is the hardest to find. Greats don’t come along every year. Just be sure not to miss them when they do. Have everything ready to go, and be ready to win once your window opens. Nothing to it, right?

Them’s The Breaks

Yeah. At every step along the way, luck plays an outsize part. Ways live and die by it.

There used to be an Oriole Way. Then they were terrible for decades, and everyone forgot about it. But hey, you nail the top pick one year, get an MVP-caliber guy like Adley Rutschman in the door, and you’re back!

Just as you can make all the right calls and still fail, you can just as easily do a lot of things wrong and get a break anyways. Like, say, the recent Spurs or Orioles.

For their part, my beloved Cardinals haven’t exactly looked light-years ahead lately, with clubhouse drama bubbling over, indecisive flip-flops, and a growing list of stars blossoming elsewhere after the Cardinals traded them away. We miss you, Randy and Sandy.

Maybe they’re worse at evaluating talent now. Maybe they’re getting worse at maximizing that talent. Maybe their luck’s run out on both fronts.

Or… maybe not?! By heritage, I’m obligated to hope. They’re calling their top prospect back up today. Maybe that’ll get something going. Probably not, but you’re in it until you’re not.

It’s the hope that gets you, but I guess I’m happy to be gotten. There’s always next year. Wouldn’t have it any other Way.

P.S.

With the NBA Finals now underway, let me close by endorsing a seeming contradiction, which I promise I wrote before Game 1: the Spoelstra Heat are the best talent maximizers in basketball, but the league’s most resourceful franchise is about to get absolutely waxed by the best player in basketball, Nikola Jokic and the Nuggets.

Why? The Nuggets are better. Sometimes that’s all there is to it. If the Heat were somehow facing a worse team in the Finals, that’d be a good break. Having to play these Nuggets is a bad one. Tough luck.

On balance, Jokic might be the best draft pick ever, a two-time MVP at #41 and a real credit to the Nugget Way. Even they couldn’t have expected their Serbian second-rounder to turn into this, but hey. Sometimes you get lucky.