On Sept. 9, 142 games into a renaissance season, the Pittsburgh Pirates manager was on his team bus, typing rapidly into an iPhone. His Pirates had been swept the day before in St. Louis, unmercifully outscored 26-10, and the annual Pittsburgh panic was setting in. There'd been no winning season since 1992. Babies born that year were now old enough to drink. And the Pirates were driving them to do just that.

For four days, the team had been stuck on 81 wins. Getting No. 82 and clinching a winning record would be a seminal moment, which is why the players were suddenly pressing. The Pirates had now flown from St. Louis to Texas, where they would face dominant Yu Darvish, and what the team needed most was a message from its calm warhorse of a manager.

So there sat the Pirates' skipper, once the opposite of serene, entering a "Thought Of The Day" into his smartphone. A mile from The Ballpark in Arlington, he hit send, and 1,000 people from all over the world -- including his players, his players' wives, his players' friends, his coaching friends, his lifelong buddies, his monthlong buddies -- received the following email:
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