By popular demand, the following is excerpted from Bill Manning’s Welcome Remarks at the FDIC 2005 Opening Ceremony.
I’m so proud of this FDIC effort, in each and every aspect, and I’m so grateful to be a part of it. I hope that running through some of the departments and numbers involved gives you a sense of why I say each year that there’s no way I can personally thank each person who gives time, energy, expertise, and resources to this incredible effort. But I can and will ask you to help me thank them now, from these world-class instructors to the leadership of the Indianapolis Fire Department and fire departments across Marion County and beyond to the folks who hauled water to the sites or donated equipment or manned apparatus to the great core team and most especially to you and each and every firefighter who goes the extra mile to make this fire service and this world a better place.
How does something like this come about? The H.O.T. training, these General Sessions, the 140 specialized classroom programs that begin today, the exhibits …. Well, how does anything worth doing come about? Words come to mind. Words like vision and dedication and effort and organization and commitment and teamwork and so forth.
When I was kid growing up in New York, we had this new major league baseball franchise called the Mets. Most of you remember or heard fabled stories about the NY Mets in the early years. The word “terrible” doesn’t quite do justice to their complete ineptitude. Players running around the bases backward. Their best pitcher going 10 wins and 24 losses. Easy pop flies dropped, errors all over the field. Hitters who obviously made the wrong career choice. A team that earned the distinction of being not only the “losingest” but the worst team of 20th century Major League Baseball, the latter “distinction” supported by the number crunchers-but it was obvious to everybody, without numbers, if you saw them play. Those early Mets found every conceivable way to lose. They were the laughingstock of baseball.
In 1969, after seven seasons of very bad, losing baseball, that all changed. By that time the Mets actually had some talent, and in one or two cases, some great talent, but still there was no way in the world, on paper or in anyone’s mind, that they could challenge the Cubs for the pennant-that defied reason and sanity. In June, winning the World Series was unthinkable to sober people. But July 1969 was a different month, and it was as if someone had flicked a switch and turned reality upside down. The pitchers seemed to have more stuff. Hits were dropping in at just the right moment. Mediocre fielders suddenly looked liked Willie Mays or Brooks Robinson. Suddenly, there was magic in the air, and, as a 12-year-old boy, I was caught up in that magic.
You know what happened. You know how that season turned out. I remember the great pitching of Seaver and Koosman, I remember those catches by Agee and Swoboda and some cool hitting by Cleon Jones and even a home run or two from Buddy Harrelson. But I remember most a spark plug of a relief pitcher named Tug McGraw. I remember the way he stomped quickly out to the mound slapping his glove on his thigh in determined excitement. I remember his smile. And I remember in July 1969 when the Mets were gaining on the Cubs and, when asked about the Mets’ chances, he said, “You gotta believe.” “You gotta believe.” “You gotta believe.” He said it over and over and over again, a mantra. And the way he thumped his glove, the way he said it, that look in his eyes, you knew he meant it: He really did believe.
Soon there were signs up all over Shea Stadium: “You gotta believe.” Nine games out. Newspaper headlines: “You gotta believe.” Two games out. Bumper stickers: “You gotta believe.” You felt it, you breathed it. You were believing. An entire city was believing. It started from one guy and spread to 25 others, and that spread to a whole city. I swear to you, that team and that city believed itself into winning the World Series, against all the odds. It was almost, well, unbelievable. They were amazing because they believed-the Amazin’ Mets.
We pay tribute in this Opening Ceremony to the 107 U.S. firefighters who died in the line of duty in 2004. We’ve conducted this ceremonial tribute for the past nine years at FDIC. I can’t remember a year when the number of firefighters whose names we sadly put up on that screen was less than 100-and if it was less, it wasn’t by much. And we give well-deserved attention to issues of reducing preventable line-of-duty deaths and injuries, at this conference and beyond. We sure talk about it a lot. And every year nothing changes.
Do you believe it can change? Do you believe we can change against all odds? Do you believe?
We CAN reduce the number of firefighters killed and injured responding to/returning from. You gotta believe. We CAN reduce cardiac/stress-related deaths and injuries. You gotta believe. We CAN reduce deaths and injuries on the fireground without sacrificing our mission. You gotta believe. We CAN increase firefighter longevity beyond the national norm, but you gotta believe.
The “Everybody Goes Home” initiative by the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation can and will work, but first you gotta believe. You CAN produce safety initiatives, cardiac wellness and medical programs that make a difference, but first you gotta believe. We CAN get all firefighters to strap into their seats, we CAN respond more cautiously, we CAN and will use tried and proven highway incident safety precautions across the board, but first you gotta believe. Training and education can and will make a difference, but first you gotta believe.
Belief is not about words. Belief is something that resides deep in the soul and shines out through the eyes. Belief creates positive actions, positive organizational cultures. It never lets you rest until you’ve reached the objective you believe you can and will achieve. It’s contagious, and it spreads like wildfire. And it’s happy, resolute, unalterable, unsinkable. It makes people achieve and travel far beyond where anyone ever thought they could. Belief is the wings for your dreams. Belief makes everything possible.
The fire service is smart, committed, courageous, inventive, hard working. The changes I’ve seen in this fire service in 17 years have been dramatic and wonderful. But surely not dramatic and wonderful enough, and we have 107 fallen firefighters in 2004 and well over 2,000 firefighters over the past 20 years to prove it.
In my mind, the Mets of 1969 were not so much about baseball as they were about life. It was a lesson that so often goes unlearned. In the memory of firefighters killed in the line of duty, for yourselves, and in anticipation of future generations in this eternal season of lifesaving, I ask you to let it begin with you the way it began with Tug McGraw. You gotta believe. You gotta believe.
