Just to prove how open I am, I’ve chosen an analogy to the Boston Red Sox (gulp) as our comment of the week.

There were plenty of great choices this week, as the site really bubbled with some great commentary on issues such as public libraries and Erie’s mindset.

But I’m singling out a comment from Michael because it illustrates rather colorfully an issue I’ve been pushing quite a bit lately. Here it is:

Erie is like the Red Sox. The Red Sox kept failing to win the World Series for 86 years, and the fans seemed to almost revel in their losing. I think the population of Erie is similar. They’ve accepted the “same old” that happens, almost expecting it, and gripe about it constantly.

And as the other posters said, the local government is part of this. The Red Sox for years used the same formula of having a offensive fixture in left field (See Williams, Yaz, Rice, Manny) around a good lineup and then skimping on speed, defense, or relief pitching- this was the Red Sox for years. They were even the last team to have a black player — they stuck to their old ways and lost for most of the 50’s and 60’s rather than embrace the change that every other team in the league had,

The Red Sox finally realized a few years ago that maybe they should embrace the things they needed, an abandon the way they ran their franchise for years. They brought in Theo Epstein, a twenty-something who had been a Yale law student, as their GM. They brought in statistics guru Bill James. They put more of a focus on defense and speed. It has paid off with two World Series Championships. They spent all that time focusing on the big bad Yankees, but the Yankees never held them back. They did. They never changed and seemingly expected to lose in the end, and that’s what always happened for 86 years.

Erie has the same problem as the old Red Sox. Leaders that all seem to be cut from the same mold. The same ideas. The public accepting the same ideas. Not embracing the changing times. The bad attitude filtering everywhere.

Erie can change, but the “old ways” need to be abandoned and change needs to be embraced- change in our leaders and change in our attitude.

Einstein once said, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”