Where Have All of Our Heroes Gone?

I grew up in the 1970's and 1980's in the inner city of Cleveland, Ohio. Long before the internet and ESPN came into existence. I remember watching the Cleveland Indians and Cleveland Browns games with my father on a floor model, console television that you actually had to change channels on by turning a dial. That same television required an antenna on the roof of our house to attain the best picture quality, and the weather affected the feed of roughly five local channels to choose from. Those were the "golden days" of sports in my eyes. They were also the final days of our innocence as sports fans.

Rick Manning, Andre Thornton, Ozzie Newsome, Greg and Mike Pruitt, they were all larger than life, and as far as I was concerned, they were super heroes. Visiting teams, with the likes of Reggie Jackson, Brooks Robinson, Franco Harris, and "Mean" Joe Greene, were visitors from another planet. The players named above, and any other person that wore a uniform, swung a bat, scored a touchdown, or walked the fairways of Augusta were above reproach in the eyes of a seven year old boy.

Throw in the mix, a guy named Lynn Nolan Ryan Jr., and that same seven year old boy would spend the next 23 years trying to become #34 himself. I emulated his walk, his wind up, the grunt he let out when firing a fastball past a hitter. Later in my "career" I would adopt his workout, his diet, his uniform number, and I'd even soak my fingers in pickle brine to battle callouses, just like Nolan did! Unfortunately for me, I wasn't blessed with the same arm as Mr. Ryan (I did hit the low 90's on the radar gun in high school); but a shoulder injury during my freshman year in college spoiled any dreams I had of matching those 7 no hitters!

The point of those first three paragraphs was to take you back in time a little bit. To make you forget about Barry Bonds, Tiger Woods, Roger Clemens, and Manny Ramirez. Go back to a time when EVERY game wasn't on television and you were forced to listen to a baseball game on the radio while helping your father change the oil in the garage on a warm, Saturday afternoon. Back to a time when you had to mentally walk in your favorite athlete's spikes, you couldn't just grab a PS3 controller and run over tacklers. Back to a time when, if given an opportunity to see a game live and in person, you would drop whatever you had planned for the day for the chance to sit on a seat cushion, eat a hot dog with stadium mustard, and get a sunburn out in the bleachers.

The over exposure of sports through the internet, cable and satellite television, and 4G wireless devices has taken the joy of a day at the stadium away from all of us. That same technology has also robbed the youth of today of their innocence. I doubt that there are any seven year old boys out there today, wishing they were Barry Bonds, Tiger Woods, Roger Clemens, or Manny Ramirez; and that saddens me. At one time, those men were larger than life to many seven year old boys. Those seven year old boys are now bitter young men for having their heroes destroyed.

I'm not condoning the rampant use of steroids in sports, or the womanizing ways of Tiger; I'm just distraught at the thought of the seven year old boy that looked at these men as heroes, only to have their hero knocked down to his knees by the camera, pen, and internet feed. You can't tell me that 30 years ago, players weren't involved in scandals; they most definitely were. The lack of technology prevented a lot of leaking of information. Today, a rumor can become a scandal with a quick tap on a qwerty keyboard...it sucks!

Years ago, Charles Barkley uttered those famous words "I'm not a role model", and I agree with him. I have never told one of my daughters to act like Michelle Wie, or to try and become Jennie Finch. But, would it be so bad for them to want to idolize them as sports figures, without the media telling them the last time Michelle or Jennie was the at fault driver in a car accident? That type of reporting has watered down today's professional athlete, video games have turned our children into zombie athletes, and the internet gives us the opportunity to see photos of washed up quarterback's private parts.

As much as I love that I have the ability to turn on the television and watch virtually any sporting event that I want to nowadays, a big part of me wants to go back in time; when dad had to climb up on the roof to adjust the antenna. Maybe I'll just go read a book.