I grew up on the South Side of Chicago, so naturally, I’m a White Sox fan.  Now it’s important to pause for a moment and note that the rest of my family – Dad, Mom, sister, and brother – who were all dwellers of the same abode, again, situated on the South Side of Chicagoland, are all Cubs fans.

(insert jokes about 1908 here)

Despite the Cubs’ pathetic, some say cursed, existence throughout much of the 20th and current century, there was one bright spot.  One shining example of consistency.  One paragon of faithfulness amidst a morass of mediocrity.

His name was Ernie Banks.  He played for 19 years in Major League Baseball, elected to the national baseball Hall of Fame in 1977.  But what made Banks stand out was the fact that he played his entire professional career, all 2,528 games, for the same team – the Cubs.

Now certainly the money wasn’t the same in the middle of the last century as it is today, and Curt Flood’s birth of free agency was still in its infancy, how many current players can claim the consistency and allegiance of Ernie Banks?  Hint – you probably won’t need two hands to finish counting.

There’s something powerfully significant about planting your roots somewhere, committing yourself to the mission, and then working hard every day.  Will times get tough?  Certainly.  Will you feel like giving up?  Without a doubt.

As humans, we have an infinite capacity to rationalize.  We can convince ourselves of just about anything.  Let’s face it.  Bailing sounds legitimate when we meet resistance.  But could it be that persistence, not distance, is the best response to resistance?

Stay in the fight.  Keep swinging.  Remain committed to the goal.

One old, dirty uniform says a lot more than a bunch of different clean ones.