The Yankees Win!

I have been following baseball (and have been a die-hard fan of the Yankees) since the summer of 2004. That made 2009 the sixth season. And finally, Yankees went on to win it all earlier this month. It was a great day and I celebrated it like a crazy fan. Clearly, this team was far better than any of the other 29 teams this year. Hopefully, Yankees will retain that edge next year.

A lot of skeptics wrote off the Yankees early in the year. And a lot of them felt that Angels or Phillies would beat them, even after they made the playoffs (in spite of the Yanks sporting the best record of the year, by far). And when they finally won it, there was a lot of talk about how the Yankees "bought" a championship. To me, that is not a fair statement. If the Yankees have a higher budget than the other teams, it is due to a combination of two factors. One - the team has a lot more fans and supporters than other teams. That means more people want to see the Yanks win than the others :-). Secondly, the ownership has been investing most/all of the profits back into the team (which is a well known fact), unlike other owners who want to pocket profits and not really care to bring in the best possible players. Anyway, I guess there will always be people who find faults with the Yanks, irrespective of the results. So, I will choose to ignore the negative comments/press and celebrate through the off-season!

End of the Year

Each year, I approach the end of the year with the mindset that not much is going to happen at work. And each year, I run into surprises - mostly pleasant. Leftover budgets and forgotten initiatives end up in hastily scheduled discussions and busy times. This year has been very different. There have been so many planned initiatives that were kicked off in November (and a few more scheduled for December), that things have been extremely hectic. I still have not had a chance to discuss leftover budgets with some of our key customers. We have been hiring pretty much every week, which is an indicator of how things have been. They say growth can be a good problem to have. I've always said that it can be a BIG problem to have. I am going through that big problem phase, once again.