Let's blow up a couple of sports myths, based on what we saw on Sunday. 1) It's a bad idea to rest your starters late in the season, because teams need need mometum going into the playoffs. 2) There is such a thing as destiny in sports. Let's start with number 1. Can we finally put this one to rest? The Saints lost their last three regular season games; the Colts lost their last two. Both made it to the Super Bowl. This doesn't mean that it works every time when teams rest their starters; what it means is that when these teams happen to lose, this is not the reason why. Keep this paragraph in mind next December, when one or two teams are resting their starters, losing meaningless games and working talking heads into a lather. But here's my bigger myth-buster, and this is one I've fully believed in since November 2001. There is no such thing as sports destiny. Teams are not "fated" to win. I bring this up now because a lot of people believe destiny had something to do with the Saints winning the Super Bowl. It didn't. My reason: the 2001 World Series. It was played six weeks after 9/11. The Yankees were in it. The team was lifting the city with its playoff run. If Destiny were to ever push a team to a title, this was the year. And Destiny appeared to be in play. The Yankees lost Games 1 and 2 in Arizona, then rebounded with a 2-1 win in Game 3. That's when Destiny seemed to take over. In Game 4, the Yankees trailed by two runs with two outs in the 9th inning, before Tino Martinez hit a 2-run home run to tie the game. Derek Jeter won it in the 10th with a walk-off homer. In Game 5, the Yankees again trailed by two runs in the 9th, with two outs. This time, Scott Brosius hit the dramatic 2-run homer to tie the game (can you imagine how crazy the fans were going at this moment -- watching their team tie the game on consecutive nights, with 9th inning home runs, given the context at the time?). The Yankees won that game in the 12th inning. You know the rest. The series moved back to Arizona, went to a Game 7, and the Diamondbacks won it with 2 runs in the 9th inning against Mariano Rivera, the best closer ever. Tell me how that was destiny. Sometimes teams with great and uplifting stories win the championship, like the Saints did this year. Sometimes great guys with incredible underdog stories and sincere moral fiber win the championship, like Kurt Warner did following the 1999 season. And sometimes those teams and those players lose. But destiny has nothing to do with it.
