No more heroes

No more heroes
Athletes in the past had more class, played sports with honor

By Jeffry Gardner
Friday, October 26, 2007

As a lad, I was a Baltimore Colts fan in the fall, a Los Angeles Lakers fan in the winter and a Dodgers fan in heat of the summer.

The Colts had the greatest quarterback ever to play the game - Johnny Unitas. He threw to Raymond Berry and John Mackey. Neither Mackey nor Berry spiked the football when they scored a touchdown, much less pulled a Sharpie out of their socks, signed the ball and tossed it into the stands, a la Terrell Owens.

When Boston's Bill Russell and Los Angeles' Wilt Chamberlain squared off, neither slammed the basketball through the hoop, danced around, hollered like fools and beat their chests. They just played. Brilliantly.

And, of course, there were no special files kept on Sandy Koufax or Don Drysdale. When Koufax brought that side-armed heat, no one in the stands wondered if he was on steroids.

As far as I know, none of the above was ever asked to pee in a cup - you know, just to be sure their genius wasn't pharmaceutically induced.

This isn't to say that these fellows weren't competitive. They taunted each other, baited each other, jabbed, poked, elbowed and brushed back with the best. Somehow, though, they did it with class. They managed it all with a certain - what? - sportsmanship?

There were blemishes, to be sure. But more often than not our sports heroes deserved that moniker.

Fast forward now to our enlightened age. This summer, the all-time home-run record - one of sports' most revered - was broken. Replacing the jubilation the overwhelming majority of Americans felt when Hank Aaron broke Babe Ruth's mark in the spring of 1974, was a cheerless sense of nationwide relief when San Francisco's Barry Bonds finally rewrote the book.

We were overexposed to his life, his rumored steroid use, his petulance. We were tired of Bonds and his asterisk.

The scandals - the painful perpetual motion machine that is the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox saga, the steroid investigation - like Bonds, we're overexposed and overweary. Too much A-Rod and the stripper, or Gary Sheffield lamenting about racism in baseball. Note to Gary: Most of us - red, white, brown, black or blue - aren't making millions playing a game. A game, Gary.

Fortunately for baseball, the Colorado Rockies story washed out the bitter taste of this baseball season's hangover left in our mouths.

Their run to their division title, their blast through to the playoffs to the National League crown, ultimately winning 21 of 22 games - it's the stuff that Ring Lardner would have memorialized 90 years ago.

Along the way, there hasn't been any smash-mouth chatter or whining or anything else that accompanies sports champions today.

Win or lose the series with the Red Sox, the Rockies might well be the team that saved the game for another season.

http://www.abqtrib.com/news/2007/oct...o-more-heroes/

I agree that the stars of yesteryear were, for the most part, more reserved than the ones of today are. However, I wonder how much of that is driven by the 24 hour hype machine that today's media has become. If you want exposure you have to do something to get it...and since exposure comes with 50 mil worth of merchandising contracts, most will do something.

As for the off field part of it, yesterday's athletes weren't angels off the field. Sports reporters are what have changed...nobody in the past reported on off field incidents. Today, there are sports guys who ONLY report on those, and not the actual games being played.

Well I know for a fact those athletes of old were more classy! Why just look at Ruth and Cobb.....they were Class with a capital C!

I know, I hate when people start talking about how good it use to be. We all know cheating was never prevalent in sports before, and things like racism were never a problem...
There are tons of professionals in sports with great personalities, and I have no doubt that sports are in a better state today than they were 50 years ago.