In the 2004 American League Championship Series, the Boston Red Sox faced off against their most hated rivals, the New York Yankees. The Red Sox were already in the midst of an 86-year World Series drought known as “The Curse of the Bambino.” 2004 was the closest Boston had come to winning a World Series title since the infamous Bill Buckner error in 1986. Red Sox fans had believed all year long that this was THE year. However, after being down 3 games to none in the series, the Red Sox faced elimination in game 4. Almost all hope was lost as Mariano Rivera entered the game with the Yankees leading by one run in the bottom of the 9th inning. However, things began to get interesting in the bottom of the 9th.
Rivera is regarded as the best closer …show more content…
However, there has never been a definitive way to prove whether clutch hitters exist. Because the definition of clutch has never had a concrete definition, there has never been a way to measure how a player performs in a clutch situation. This leads into my previous question of “what does it really mean to be clutch”? In Darren Hibbs’s A Conceptual Analysis of Clutch Performances in Competitive Sports, he acknowledges that the term can have several meanings (47) while also giving the best possible definition for the word (55). While most people usually associate being clutch with winning a game in the last inning, it could also be applied to specific situations within the game that may or may not affect the outcome. For example, if a batter battles back from 2 strikes and no balls to earn a walk or a hit in a late inning of a tight game, it is considered clutch by most people. While the batter may have not directly impacted the game, he ended up succeeding in a high-pressure situation. Therefore, a clutch hit doesn’t necessarily mean that it wins the game. Hibbs’s definition of clutch is much more complex. Per Hibbs, the definition of clutch is defined as “when a participant in a competitive sport succeeds in a competition related challenging task during a clutch situation, is aware that the performance occurs during a clutch situation, possesses the capacity to experience clutch situation-related stress, cares about the outcome of the contest, and succeeds primarily due to skill rather than luck or cheating” (55). Based off Hibbs’s definition of clutch, we can now have a solid foundation and a concrete definition of a clutch hitter. While we may have a definition of clutch, this doesn’t necessarily mean that there really is such a thing as a clutch
Rivera is regarded as the best closer …show more content…
However, there has never been a definitive way to prove whether clutch hitters exist. Because the definition of clutch has never had a concrete definition, there has never been a way to measure how a player performs in a clutch situation. This leads into my previous question of “what does it really mean to be clutch”? In Darren Hibbs’s A Conceptual Analysis of Clutch Performances in Competitive Sports, he acknowledges that the term can have several meanings (47) while also giving the best possible definition for the word (55). While most people usually associate being clutch with winning a game in the last inning, it could also be applied to specific situations within the game that may or may not affect the outcome. For example, if a batter battles back from 2 strikes and no balls to earn a walk or a hit in a late inning of a tight game, it is considered clutch by most people. While the batter may have not directly impacted the game, he ended up succeeding in a high-pressure situation. Therefore, a clutch hit doesn’t necessarily mean that it wins the game. Hibbs’s definition of clutch is much more complex. Per Hibbs, the definition of clutch is defined as “when a participant in a competitive sport succeeds in a competition related challenging task during a clutch situation, is aware that the performance occurs during a clutch situation, possesses the capacity to experience clutch situation-related stress, cares about the outcome of the contest, and succeeds primarily due to skill rather than luck or cheating” (55). Based off Hibbs’s definition of clutch, we can now have a solid foundation and a concrete definition of a clutch hitter. While we may have a definition of clutch, this doesn’t necessarily mean that there really is such a thing as a clutch