My thought is that we, as fans, don't have as much to do with winning or losing as we may think.
I would hope fans don't think they have much of anything to do with winning and losing, period. I can't tell you how many times I have had Philly fans around me who suffer from the delusion that they somehow have an impact on what the team does. I shook my head and laughed at group of them one time when Ryan Howard got up to bat in the bottom of the 9th, and one of the ring leaders told his punk buddies, "Quiet, let's just let him do his thing." Unbelievable.
What fans can have an impact on ultimately is how an organization acts in terms of a commitment to building an organization. This can be a pretty complicated set of dynamics. Some owners are driven to be winners, some are driven by a combination of winning and money as the two are often intertwined. A community that seems to demand and respond to an organization committed to winning and general excellence can potentially have a different impact on an organization than a community that appears to tolerate and accept mediocrity. But ultimately, it is out of the control of the fan in so many ways. Certainly Steinbrenner is committed to doing whatever he thinks should be done to try and win at all cost, because he believes that his team should be in the WS every year. But does that come from his own desire, from an expectation that he believes the NY fan base has, or some combination? Then you have fans who want the same level of success but have an owner like Angelos who operates on a different level entirely. You never know.
