Prepare For Glory!

Being a huge NY Mets fan, I have been watching Tom Glavine's starts with interest lately; He's going for win 300- a milestone in baseball that has been pretty well immune to the steroid accusations of many of the MLB's records, and something that fewer and fewer people will ever reach. Nobody has ever reached 300 in a Mets uniform either, so it's a very special thing for fans of the best team in New York.

The movie 300 just came out on DVD recently, and it's kind of weird that this movie and Tom's 300th win have shared the same week. While nobody doubts the visual punch of the film, some people I talked to thougth that 300 was too nihilistic. The singleminded attitude and the glory looked for in death- these are not popular ideals in our world, especially in a country fighting an unpopular war. That WAS the reality of Sparta, though. While the movie wasn't historically accurate, the attitude conveyed within it was just that. There was a time when that virtue- the concept of victory or death being a win-win situation- was something prized the world over. Impossible odds didn't matter. Only the will to win was important.

Even so, when Glavine to won tonight it was because he did the same thing the 300 Spartians did that day in the Hot Gates.

He prepared for it.

A great baseball player, like those firey Spartians, train their whole life for one moment. The Spartians were ready. It was clear that Tom was ready also.

I often wonder if some measure of glory will come my way. Hopefully, I will have prepared for it when the time comes.