There is something undeniably joyful about watching the emergence of a young athlete like Cam Schlittler. The New York Yankees pitcher, just 25, has become the team's ace barely a year after his major league debut and pitched a gem this past week in the Yankees' playoff-opening win.

It might seem as though he came out of nowhere but there was nothing sudden about his seemingly sudden emergence. He has been working at his craft for years.

More than a feel-good sports story, Schlittler is a pop culture example of a serious truth about achievement and advancement: It takes time. There is rarely any overnight element to success, a point reiterated repeatedly in recent stories from other realms that fly a little lower on the public radar.

A couple weeks ago, for example, astronomers from the University of Oregon and the Harvard & Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics reported that they had discovered radio waves coming from a planet 63 light-years away, waves that probably are the result of a strong........

© Newsday