9=8 (yes, 9 does still equal 8 for the Rays) - Joe Maddon announces 2009 slogan "9 > 8"

As all readers of this blog know, Joe Maddon launched 2008 with the seemingly strange motto of 9=8. That is to say (just as a reminder) 9 players, playing hard as a team for 9 innings equals 1 of the 8 spots in the postseason. That great slogan was the genesis of this Rays blog.

So, how would Joe Maddon inspire his team this year? Last week the skipper announced that the slogan for 2009 is "'09 > '08" (or, 2009 is greater than 2008). Maddon specifically said he preferred not to use the word "greater" but that there is no symbol for "better," so he went with greater and the associated symbol ">".

Joe Maddon did go on to say, "Of course I wanted to re-emphasize that 9 will always equal 8 in our math, but furthermore, this year, '09 is going the be greater than '08." Yeah, we here at 9=8.com do believe this is the core of the franchise's philosophy, so we're glad to hear Joe reiterate this point. Below are some additional comments on the new slogan from Maddon (per the St. Pete Times' Heater Blog).

"Of course I wanted to re-emphasize that 9 will always equal 8 in our math, but furthermore, this year, '09 is going the be greater than '08,'' he said. "And we want it to be hopefully better by at least three games, which we missed last year. Of course we did wonderfully last year and of course it was all good, but I keep talking about building this new road and you just can't rely on 9 = 8 all the time. You have to better than we were in some areas last year.

"I'm not talking about being great. Although that phrase is greater than, and you look at the greater than sign, I'd prefer it equalled "better than" as opposed to "greater than." ... I just want us to understand that in order to build this new road we have to be better than we were last year. I did say “greater than,” but then I reduced it to “better than, and eventually I would just like to get that (the > symbol) working for us, just the symbol, "better than." There’s no “better than” symbol. I was thinking of creating my own symbol with the “greater than” sign maybe with a circle around it, equaling better than. Just a new Rays culture kind of symbol , but I didn’t want to get too nuts, so I just chose to go this way.’’