The Dave Winfield Effect
I have a theory about success. It’s kind of like the “rich get richer” theme but more along the lines of success in general. Some people seem to be magnets for opposition and difficult times. Roger Maris falls into this category. After getting dogged by the press and fans during his career, his family’s beer distribution company has been dogged by Anheuser-Busch. Just watch Billy Crystal’s 61* movie for details about his baseball days. For many, though, it almost seems like success begets success. I was reading through my latest issue of CRN and I found the latest ShadowRAM article insightful. It appears that Dave Winfield is on the board of a company called Authentify. I think the funniest part of the whole thing, though, is that the article points out that he doesn’t seem to know Jack about what the company does or at least isn’t comfortable talking about it.
Asked what the company does–hey, it doesn’t hurt to test the guy–he said, “They do a little something with managing your identification. It’s a great technology. Very different, but I’m not going to get into that right now.” Translation: “I have no clue.”
Now that’s funny! And it’s also quite sad. To me it’s like listening to any of the stars that now get to do voice ads on TV. As if they aren’t successful enough? Now they get paid to be the “voice” of AOL, Cingular, or some other company. To top it all off, it never seems to be the nice people who get this either. Some consider Winfield a nice guy and others don’t. Personally, I found this next statement to be nothing short of arrogant:
Asked if he was going to be the next CEO of a major tech company, Winfield said, “I don’t know about that, but I’m going to continue to hit doubles and home runs in my next career.” Youch. Even Dave Winfield needs better lines than that.
All I can say is that if Dave Winfield gets to make big $ just for having his Hall of Fame name on the list of directors, then it is further proof (as if it was needed) that the world isn’t fair at all.