The Diamond Heels may be like the Chicago Cubs, sort of.
If you get a chance, find a copy of the commencement address Yale alumnus Theo Epstein delivered to his school’s graduating class recently. It uses the Cubs, for whom Epstein is the general manager, as a great metaphor for young people moving forward in life.
Epstein recounts how the Cubs, on the verge of breaking a 108-year curse, blew a lead in Game Seven of the World Series to the Cleveland Indians and had to endure a rain delay before going back out to a tie score. What Epstein saw during the break confirmed that his team was a winner whether or not it won that game.
Carolina’s baseball team is a shortened version of the Cubs, who lost 101 games in Epstein’s first season as GM and then built the youngest World Series champion in history the hard way. Likewise, Mike Fox’s team has stood together during two atypical seasons of missing the NCAA Tournament and have built a ball club that has a chance to deliver to UNC what the Cubbies did for Chicago.
The Diamond Heels have been a lot more successful recently than were those Lovable Losers from Wrigley Field, having that run of six College World Series in eight years. But Fox would probably tell you that mini-tradition has less to do with his team’s recent success than the struggles of the last two seasons, when the Tar Heels stood together, shoulder to shoulder, and kept their heads up.
That was the theme of Epstein’s address, a young team that believed in each other and stood, shoulder to shoulder, in that crowded Cleveland locker room and went back out to complete a comeback from down three games to one, winning the decisive game and the Series with a team that learned to believe in one another.
Reading about these Heels, who will take the field in the NCAA Tournament tonight against Davidson, you get the same feeling of togetherness in the clubhouse. Their top five hitters are one senior, Tyler Lynn, two juniors, a sophomore and a freshman. But they have built confidence in each other, infused it into the younger players and now seem ready to accomplish something UNC never has.
The talented 2016 Cubs knew they had only a few veterans, but they also knew to keep their heads up when things didn’t quite go their way. Epstein implored the Yale class of 2017 to do the same and seize the opportunity. For the ’17 Diamond Heels, that opportunity is here.
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