Baseball, Hot Dogs, Apple Pie, Chevrolet, and the High Holidays!

If you’re Jewish and a baseball fan, there’s gotta be a special place in your heart for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. As the vast majority of those reading this probably know, it started way back before SportsCenter and smart phones, when dinosaurs roamed the earth, with Hank Greenberg and Sandy Koufax foregoing important games at the end of the season and during the World Series respectively.

Then as fans we carried the torch, as kids in junior congregation or a cool parent in each synagogue across America would bring a transistor radio with an earpiece into the service, listen to the game, and like a  3rd base coach flashing signs, bring the rest of the congregation up to speed on the scores. I bet if you did social research on this these kids either grew up to commit adultery or give away trade secrets – unless they were busted by their parents or the junior congregation teacher Ms. Schwartz, the fear of that leaving a lasting impression on them so they became Secret Service, or TV sports anchors instead.

There are mystical qualities to both entities as well and this year has been no exception. Flash back to the 1st night of Rosh Hashanah which was the last night of the regular season. After dinner we had 7 guys watching 3 games simultaneously, at one point changing the channel after each pitch - as in each league the wild card favorites (Boston Red Sox and Atlanta Braves) were in the process of historic chokes, being overtaken by streaking teams (Tampa Bay Rays and St. Louis Cardinals) in the 162nd game of the season within about 30 minutes of each other. Then in services the next morn you read of Abraham almost killing his first born Isaac and being stopped by angels in the nick of time.

On Yom Kippur the holiday and American pastime symmetry continued as at night the National League leading Philadelphia Phillies were beaten in the first round by the aforementioned Cardinals at home, which came a night after the best of the American League New York Yankees lost to the Detroit Tigers – at home. Both losers were the prohibitive favorites at the beginning of the season to meet in the World Series with the Phils beating the Yanks because good pitching beats good hitting, but that’s why they play the games. Meanwhile on the day of Yom Kippur we’re fasting and dreaming of delicacies (specifically a pastrami on rye with mustard and a Dr. Brown’s Cream Soda on the side, which was a change of pace – usually it’s sweet and pungent pork with fried wontons at Woo-Hop’s – downstairs thank you, reminiscent of the glory days of breaking fast at my mom’s and then driving to Chinatown to really break fast) while contemplating Jonah being the main course for a great fish that in the end actually had acid reflux.

As for the rest of the season(s), the Cards are going to the big dance because their opponents the Milwaukee Brewers' (has there ever been a more aptly named sports team?) star player Ryan Braun played on Yom Kippur (yes he’s only ½ Jewish on his father’s side and non-observant – according to the NYT, but homey don’t play that), and we’re rooting for the Detroit Tigers in the AL because we’d like a classic World Series matchup from 68 http://www.baseball-reference.com/postseason/1968_WS.shtml to give us another opportunity to go back and forth between the past and present, as that’s what we start to do at this time of year.

And the way sports seasons have gotten stretched out – we should have a champ by Hanukkah!

Jobs as Einstein

The first thing “i" thought of when I heard that Steve Jobs died last night was that this as the end of an era. I’m not sure what the era will be defined as, but the passing of a guy that has affected the world this dramatically is the societal equivalent of seismic plates shifting underfoot.

Then this morning Carol said he was a genius, like Einstein. Like Einstein?! My first response was NFW, and not just as a knee jerk reaction because my wife said it ;-) Einstein “the brand” is hallowed ground. But the more I thought about it, what other single person has done so much over the last 25 years to change the way people live their lives? To change the way companies do business? If you go back to the advent of the personal computer he’s there with Bill Gates, and then Jobs pulls away.

He starts by creating the iPod, which becomes the standard in size, shape and ease of use for all handheld devices (remember Motorola flip phone?), and revolutionizes the music industry in the process. Then he adds a phone to it and creates the first all-in-one that actually works (think TV/VCR, or those TV/Cassette/FM radios you used to get when you opened a bank account). And on his way out he blows this up in size, like putting it on steroids, and cracks the code on the tablet. Even as we speak, companies, whole industries, are becoming completely portable, transforming the speed and efficiency of business around the world. And that efficiency translates into another reason why unemployment is where it’s at that gets overlooked, companies simply don’t need as many people to do the same amount of work. And along the way he’s changed our vocabulary, putting a one letter prefix in front of every word implies it’s technologically savvy (I thought of putting an i in front of every word in this but you get the point).

So once I got my head around all his tangible successes, I started to reflect on some of his intangible achievements;

- Beauty: who’s done a better job of marrying technology and modern design? Unless you fly to Copenhagen where else do you see that? To have any additional beauty in the world is a great thing.

- Leadership: where else have you seen one man shape something so large and so directly? As the book is written about him over time it’ll be interesting to see who actually did what, but at the end of the day it was his name on the line. Often you hear of leaders who are great visionaries, but to be great at execution as well (save the occasional prototype left in a restaurant) is rare. And to do it consistently over such a long time span…who does that? You kinda wonder what would happen if he was President? Of course he could never have that level of autonomy which is probably a big reason why he and others like him didn’t/don’t go into politics…

- Loyalty: for somebody that famous and that ill to be able to keep that level of privacy. The fact that no one leaked to the media that he was on his death bed when there’s so much focus on him, that respect is real proof of great leadership.

- Mortality: he was 56 years old. I’m 53. To be able to do what he did? You can’t help on some level to think from a career perspective, “what the f&%k have I accomplished?” Of course you can’t look at it that way, you’ve just gotta have gratitude for what he created, appreciate all that he accomplished, and use that as fuel to go out and live your dreams, as he apparently did his.

So yes, I guess he’s an Einstein, only instead of changing the way we look at the world, he changed the way we live in it daily. A guy who created a legendary brand has become the new “brand” for genius. What he accomplished was“Jobsian”.