Last Wednesday, the sports pages of The New York Times had two wonderful anecdotes, one about managerial leadership, and one about the art of negotiation. In the first, by William C. Rhoden, Emerson Boozer, a star running back on the Super Bowl II-winning Jets, told a story about the key role played by the team’s owner, Sonny Werblin, in bringing the team together.

“Our core unit had played at least three to four years together,” Boozer said. “We knew each other and trusted each other.” The turning point came as a result of an off-field incident during training camp before the 1967 season. Unresolved racial tensions that had percolated for some time surfaced during an ugly episode at a bar in Peekskill, N.Y., where players congregated after practice. Boozer recalled that one of the Jets’ white players got into a dispute with [running back Matt] Snell, who is black, over the use of the pool table. “It was a ‘we want you darkies off the pool table’ kind of thing,” Boozer said. “It was from one of your teammates. Not a resident, but a teammate.”

News of the incident got back to the Jets’ owner, Sonny Werblin. The next morning, Werblin went to the training facility in a chauffeured limousine. He addressed the entire team, including coaches, at the evening meeting.

“He says: ‘You know, I’ve got fine thoroughbred horses down at Monmouth Park. When those horses train and do not perform well, should I fire my trainer?’ ” Boozer said. “`‘I’ve got this football club here and I’ve got two stars on this club. I’ve got Namath and Snell. The rest of you can pack your things now if what happens at that bar last night ever happens again.’ ” Werblin left the room, got back in his limo and returned to New York.

“Werblin cleaned it up instantly,” Boozer said. “There was not another incident. No more spats, no more backstabbing. Things calmed down. After that, we built a good rapport. ”

In the second article, Richard Sandomir talked about an incident of Congressional horse-trading. After the AFL and the NFL merged, the newly-expanded NFL needed an antitrust exemption to operate. The man who held the key to that exemption was House Majority Leader Hale Boggs, a Louisiana man, and his price was an NFL team in New Orleans.

“Boggs was serious enough about the deal to blow up at [NFL Commissioner Pete] Rozelle before the conference committee’s vote on the legislation, which was one of many riders to an anti-inflation bill that was expected to pass. According to MacCambridge, as Rozelle and Boggs walked to the Capitol Rotunda, Rozelle said he did not know how to thank Boggs. “What do you mean you don’t know how to thank me?” Boggs said. “New Orleans gets an immediate franchise in the N.F.L.”

At another point, Boggs said, Rozelle sent a note into the committee room telling the elder Boggs that he had polled N.F.L. owners and that they had “approved of New Orleans.”
“And the committee approved the exemption,” said Boggs.”

You can’t say a bad word about Peyton Manning. The very model of the modern managerial quarterback is as heroically cool as the statue of him that the Hoosiers will no doubt erect in front of their football palace the day after he retires. But Manning, like Joe Montana, like Bob Griese, is the kind of quarterback whose greatness leaves me cold. He is all excellence and no drama, all precision and no agony. I much prefer the emotional field generals, the divas, the desperadoes, the gunslingers–-Ken Stabler, John Elway, Phil Simms, Ben Roethlesberger, Terry Bradshaw on fourth and ten heaving what turns into the Immaculate Reception, Eli Manning eluding the grasping Patriots to stick the ball onto David Tyree’s head. And of these desperate Come Back With Your Shield Or On It quarterbacks, none is a better model than Brett Favre.

Over the last two decades, Favre has been the most charismatic player in the game, the one player who always made it worthwhile to go out of your way, to stay up late, to pay money to watch. It seems like he always gives you something special, a lagniappe that brings you back for more–an improvision, an underhand toss, a mighty heave, a block, a tackle, and always the promise that the game can always be won. As a quarterback, he is more of an artist than any man who played the game–capable of innovation, imagination and creativity as he authors a new performance in the company of 21 collaborators who can either help or hurt. Often the results are brilliant–a Monday night against Denver that Green Bay wins when Favre throws a bomb on the first play of overtime, and that amazing Monday Night game against Oakland that he played right after his father died, where he racked up yardage and points as though in doing so he could his father back to life. Of course, there were all those interceptions, those stupid, gambling, ill-advised picks that he threw trying to write magical endings and that instead delivered ruination.

On Sunday Favre was poised to write what might have been the most glorious chapter of his career. Already feeling his age, he was battered by the Saints almost into Y.A. Titledom. Once he had to be lifted up. Once he had to be carried off. On the sidelines, he had to be unwrapped and rewrapped like an Elgin Marble about to go on tour. And yet twice he brought the Vikings back to tie the game, and with half a minute left, he had them poised to win with a kick by the providentially named kicker Ryan Longwell. And then came a penalty that moved the Vikes out of field goal range. And then came the final play, a roll out that left an open space in front of Favre. All he needed to do was run into it, and Longwell would be back in business. Instead he heaved the ball across his body, across the filed, into the middle of the field, into the arms of a Saints defender. Troy Aikman, a three-time Super Bowl winner of the managerial type, murmured in sorry befuddlement, “That’s the first thing they teach you not to do.” Oh well. As Shelby Foote wrote of the catastrophe Pickett’s Charge, “That was the price the South paid for having Robert E. Lee.” That interception was the price Minnesota paid for having Favre lead them to the title game.

And thus his legacy. Brett Favre: Artist. Legend. Idiot.

In this week’s issue of The New Yorker, Roger Angell offers his customary valediction to the baseball season–the year’s not over until Angell sings. Although he rightly singles out Johnny Damon’s at-bat in the top of the ninth of Game Four as the pivotal moment of the series, the great Angell punts the description a bit–he’s neither succinct nor poetic (and Angell can be wonderfully poetic; I still remember his description of the perfect play of my beloved 1970 Orioles, calling them The Baltimore Vermeeers.) Still, I’m glad he acknowledged Damon’s moment. Fortunately, he’s better in his salute of Hideki Matsui, and his six RBIs in Game Six, and his MVP award. “I can’t remember a closing performance anything like this, or the feeling, while it was happening, that I quickly needed to thank Hideki Matsui–with a bow or something–not just for tonight but for every game of his seven years of super-pro service with the Yankees. His straight-back, left-handed stance, with that almond-colored bat held still; his borad-shouldered, slashing cuts at anything up in the zone; his slightly tilted vertical style of running; the trim black hair just touching the uniform at the nape; the cracked smile–we knew all this, certainly, but in some oddly formal and removed fashion, because he was Japanese, and because he didn’t speak English easily. His silence kept him old-fashioned: a ballplayer from the black-and-white newspaper-photograph days, before our heroes talked. ” Nice.

A baseball season is a novel. At its heart is a cast of characters–guys with hopes, goals, ambitions, problems, flaws, things to prove. The characters individually create a character that is a team, and over the course of the season, as the individuals succeed and fail and as the team succeeds and fail, dramas are played out. Losing can be as compelling as winning, maybe even more so. But it is awfully hard to beat winning. Last night the Yankees won their 27th World Championship; the St. Louis Cardinals, who have won the second most, have won ten. Leading the way in the 7-3 victory over the Phils were two venerable war horses, Andy Pettitte, who, pitching on three days rest, had little more to offer than guts and know-how, and the club pro, the lethally dangerous Hideki Matsui, who took a diminished role this year and used it to become the Most Valuable Player of the Series, with six RBIs last night. But everyone on this team made a significant contribution: the relentless Derek Jeter (3 more hits last night), the great Mariano Rivera (a five-out closing last night), the redeemed Alex Rodriguez, the determined Johnny Damon, and so on. Very satisfying, especially after many of them had struggled through years of failure that were complicated by the burden of dashed expectations–a very good group to root for. Eleven down, 2010 to go.

Let us now praise Johnny Damon, the ballplayer’s ballplayer, the crucial man in last night’s 7-4 Yankee win. In the first, he doubled and scored; in the fifth, he doubled and drove in a run; and in the ninth, he won the game. With two out in a 4-4 game that the Phillies had just tied with a dramatic Pedro Feliz home run over an unfocused Joba Chamberlain, Damon ended a nine-pitch at-bat with a single off Brad Lidge (top left). On the very next pitch he stole second (top center), and realizing that the infield had shifted far to the right to defend against Mark Teixiera, then scampered to an uncovered third base (top right) in a move that astounded nearly everyone watching. Two pitches later, Alex Rodriguez doubled to left (ah, left). Jorge Posada then drove in two more, Mariano Rivera brushed off the last Phillie hitter 1-2-3, and now it’s on to a possible clincher against the nearly untouchable Cliff Lee. Will the Yankees have to come back to the Bronx? We’ll see. Ten down, one to go.

Last night was a tale of two ballgames. After three innings, Cole Hamels was working on a no-hitter and Andy Pettitte had given up three runs and looked like the Bad Andy from years ago who occasionally showed up in a big game and exploded. But then Andy found his groove, A-Rod homered, Nick Swisher decided to hit, Johnny Damon, Jorge Posada, Hideki Matsui (second game in a row with a homer for the club pro) and even Pettitte delivered big hits, and the Yankees won 8-5, one of those regular-season good-timey wins to which a lot of the team contributed. The only low point came from the continued subpar performance of Phil Hughes, who started the ninth and got one guy out before surrendering a home run and being removed. It must be such a difficult thing to try to work through a slump while trying to perfrom on the sport’s biggest stage. Thank goodness Joba Chamberlain, Damaso Marte and Mariano Rivera were perfect. Tonight Sabathia tries to put a death grip on the series. It would be nice: the Yankees were in this position as recently as 2003, and it fell apart. Nine down, two to go.

After Cliff Lee and Chase Utley got the World Series off to a memorable start for the Phillies on Wednesday, the Yankees evened things up with a crisp, methodical 3-1 victory last night. Like Game One, the game was well-pitched on both sides, and just as C.C. Sabathia was a smidge worse than Lee, the great old warhorse Pedro Martinez came through with an economical performance that was just a bit inferior to A.J. Burnett’s gem. Burnett, who customarily has an inning or two with the yips, went seven, suffering only one run in damage. Meanwhile, solo homers from Mark Teixiera in the sixth and Hideki Matsui in the seventh made the difference; Matsui’s was especially noteworthy, golfing a curve that was nearly in the dirt into the right field bleachers. Mariano Rivera pitched a 6 out save. I loved what Joe Posnanski wrote about Rivera on si.com: “There’s no stadium in baseball quite as relaxed and certain as Yankee Stadium in the ninth inning with a lead. Rivera has not been perfect in his remarkable 15-year career … but close enough. He has been so good that New York fans have grown almost unaffected by the tension and fear that is supposed to afflict the body in the ninth inning of a close game. With other closers — even the best closers — there’s a jolt of adrenaline that runs through the stadium. It’s like the beginning of a Springsteen concert. Here we go! This is going to be great! You rock! But with Rivera — even if he does enter to the strains of Metallica’s Enter Sandman – the feeling is different. It’s more like the feeling of a superhero arriving on the scene. Thank God you’re here, Superman! In New York, the game is won when Rivera steps on the mound. The rest is performance.” Eight down, three to go.

Game 5 was a wild, emotional affair. Consider: Five Angels batted and scored four runs before an out was recorded in the first; then the Yanks, stifled for six innings, erupted for six runs in the seventh, making me think the game was in the bag; but in the bottom of the seventh, Girardi made weird pitcher selections and Phil Hughes made poor pitch selections, and the Angels retook the lead with 3; and then with two out in the bottom of the ninth, the Yanks loaded the bases, and Nick Swisher ran up a 3-2 count before hitting a droopy fly to left. A turbulent, annoying loss that left a feeling like you had done something you knew better than to have done, like rough housing in the living room, and you broke a nice lamp. Sorry, costly, not the end of the world. Last night, the Yanks responded by grinding out a very tough 5-2 win that was closer than the score indicated. The chief highlight was Andy Pettitte’s strong, gutsy, 6.1 inning, one-run performance; not for nothing is he the winningest postseason pitcher ever (16). Other great moments: Johnny Damon’s two-run single; Alex Rodriguez reaching base 5 times; outstanding infield play by Mark Teixiera and Robinson Cano; and a sharp six-out save by Mariano Rivera. Thus the team wins its 40th American League championship and overcomes the habitually better Angels, but it’s not enough. Seven down, four to go. The defending champion Phillies–Howard, Utley, Victorino, Lee, Hamels and Pedro Martinez!–are next.

After Monday’s long, exciting, over-managed and ultimately exasperating loss to the Angels, the Yankees finally played a complete game last night, and thoroughly beat the Angels 10-1. If L.A. woke up Tuesday feeling cheerful about having won a big game and about having on the mound on Tuesday Scott Kazmir, a top starter with a record of success against the Yanks, they surely went to bed Tuesday knowing that their chances now of mounting a historic upset (mostly) on the road against the mighty New Yorkers were small indeed. Kazmir stunk, while C.C. Sabathia (left) pitched brilliantly, eight innings of one-run baseball, but it was the offense that finally stepped up. The Yanks had been winning with power, which is a splendid way to win, but the way the team had smacked its way to 103 wins was through relentlessness–sending one patient, dangerous hitter to the plate after another. The Yanks won this year not only because Derek Jeter is clutch and because Mark Teixiera and Alex Rodriguez had a lot of homers and RBIs, but because Jorge Posada and Hideki Matsui and Robinson Cano and Nick Swisher and Johnny Damon (right, after putting the game out of reach with a two-run homer to make the score 7-1) all had 20-odd homers and 80 or 90 RBIs–the entire line-up is capable of starting a rally, and the entire line-up is capable of delivering the big hit. Last night, the team finally performed its act in the playoffs. Here’s a predicition: we’ll see it again before the season ends. L.A. is lucky to have the redoubtable John Lackey starting for them tomorrow, but I wonder if he’ll have enough to send the series back to the Bronx.

Meanwhile, speaking of A-Rod, who did indeed homer again last night (below), Tom Verducci has some good stats on si.com:
• Rodriguez has made contact on 41 of his 46 swings this postseason, an 89 percent contact rate. In the regular season he made contact 78 percent of the time.
• Dating to his last two at-bats of the regular season, Rodriguez has put the ball in play 26 times. He has homered on seven of those 26 times. That means that one out of every three or four balls he hits fair is going out of the park. He is batting .500 on balls he puts in play in that span.
• Rodriguez has not gone more than seven at-bats this postseason without hitting a home run.
• Rodriguez is outhomering the competition by himself. He has five home runs in 27 at-bats this postseason. Opposing hitters against the Yankees this postseason have combined for three home runs in 262 at-bats.
Six down, five to go.