2018
October
30
Tuesday

Monitor Daily Podcast

October 30, 2018
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Boston wins again?

Almost every year over the past two decades, a New England pro baseball, football, basketball, hockey, or soccer team has won – or contended for – a championship.

What’s behind this Beantown run?

ESPN’s Peter Keating made a compelling case: It’s the “geek” factor. As the Red Sox, Patriots, and Celtics each shifted from being family-owned to investor-owned, data drove more decisions. In 2004, Red Sox general manager Theo Epstein used statistical analysis (the “Moneyball” approach) to break the 86-year World Series “curse.” The Celtics and the Patriots (five wins in eight Super Bowl trips since 2002) have also become more reliant on analytics.  

But it’s more than numbers. Rookie Red Sox manager Alex Cora didn’t just build a team, he built a family. The first Puerto Rican coach to win a World Series knows his players like a father, reading every shoulder shrug, and moved players on and off the field with uncanny success.

Finally, there’s one more ingredient: Success creates its own momentum. You see it elsewhere with Jamaican sprinters, Cuban boxers, and the University of Connecticut women’s basketball team. “This is a place that has winning in their blood...,” Red Sox pitcher David Price said upon signing. “This is a place that expects to win. That’s what I want to be a part of.”

In short, Boston’s success formula could be summarized as confidence, science, and heart.

Now to our five selected stories, including a look at the role of presidential rhetoric, paths to a safer world, and building community in Toronto.


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Today’s stories

And why we wrote them

Andrew Harnik/AP
President Trump paused while speaking at a rally Oct. 27 at Southern Illinois Airport in Murphysboro, Ill. On Tuesday he visited Pittsburgh, where 11 worshipers were slain at a synagogue Saturday.
Tyler Evert/AP
Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia (c.) speaks to voters at a restaurant in Charleston, W.Va. Senator Manchin has made health care a central focus of his campaign.

Patterns

Tracing global connections

Perception Gaps

Comparing what’s ‘known’ to what’s true

Robots taking jobs? Yes. But that’s not the whole story.

Sara Miller Llana/The Christian Science Monitor
The writer’s front door became one of many in her Toronto neighborhood decorated for Halloween, which she found to be about togetherness more than anything else.

The Monitor's View


A Christian Science Perspective

About this feature

A message of love

Adrees Latif/Reuters
A child, part of a caravan of migrants from Central America traveling north, was carried through the Suchiate River into Ciudad Hidalgo, Mexico, from Guatemala Oct. 29.
( The illustrations in today’s Monitor Daily are by Karen Norris and Jacob Turcotte. )

A look ahead

Thanks for joining us. Come back tomorrow: We’re working on a story about the US Senate race in Tennessee and what it may say about the future of centrism.

More issues

2018
October
30
Tuesday
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