"To be successful, one must take chances"
About this Quote
Stargell’s line lands with the blunt practicality of a clubhouse sign, but it’s doing more than peddling generic motivation. “To be successful, one must take chances” is an athlete’s credo built from repetition and consequence: every swing is a wager, every baserunning decision a micro-bet against failure, embarrassment, and the box score. In baseball especially, where even the best hitters fail most of the time, “chance” isn’t a rare leap. It’s the price of entry.
The intent reads as permission, almost a dare, aimed at teammates and fans who want the comfort of certainty. Stargell isn’t romanticizing risk; he’s normalizing it. The subtext is that talent without nerve calcifies into caution, and caution is its own kind of loss. In a sport obsessed with avoiding errors, he argues that playing not to mess up is the fastest route to being forgettable.
Context matters: Stargell captained the Pittsburgh Pirates through the 1970s, a period when the game’s culture prized toughness, leadership, and swagger, and when the Pirates’ “We Are Family” identity framed success as collective momentum. The quote fits a leader who understood that championships aren’t built on safe at-bats and polite decisions. They’re built on moments when someone stretches a single into a double, swings at a pitch they might miss, speaks up in the dugout, or dares to believe a team can outrun its odds.
It works because it’s honest about the math of winning: upside demands exposure. No risk, no runway.
The intent reads as permission, almost a dare, aimed at teammates and fans who want the comfort of certainty. Stargell isn’t romanticizing risk; he’s normalizing it. The subtext is that talent without nerve calcifies into caution, and caution is its own kind of loss. In a sport obsessed with avoiding errors, he argues that playing not to mess up is the fastest route to being forgettable.
Context matters: Stargell captained the Pittsburgh Pirates through the 1970s, a period when the game’s culture prized toughness, leadership, and swagger, and when the Pirates’ “We Are Family” identity framed success as collective momentum. The quote fits a leader who understood that championships aren’t built on safe at-bats and polite decisions. They’re built on moments when someone stretches a single into a double, swings at a pitch they might miss, speaks up in the dugout, or dares to believe a team can outrun its odds.
It works because it’s honest about the math of winning: upside demands exposure. No risk, no runway.
Quote Details
| Topic | Success |
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