Somewhere in America as you read this,
there’s a kid trying to hit a rubber ball with
a broomstick and pretending to be someone
else.
At least I hope the kid is doing that instead of
playing a video game.
With the tremulous voice of an imaginary sportscaster
providing descriptive commentary in the
background, the youngster becomes one with a
hero. Every swing results in a World Series-clinching
home run in the bottom of the ninth in Game 7.
It has always been that way, of course.
Before I pretended I was Duke Snider of the
Dodgers, and my best friend did the same with
Mickey Mantle of the Yankees, a different generation
of boys and girls envisioned they were
Babe Ruth or Babe Didrikson Zaharias.
How many young basketball players _ all
alone and dribbling a ball in front of a hoop in
their driveway _ had thoughts like these:
“There he is, fans, Michael Jordan (or Larry
Bird or Magic Johnson) ... only seconds on the
clock, down by one point. He drives to his right,
makes an impossible move to his left ... three ...
two ... one ... he shoots!
“HE SCORES! Michael Jordan has done it
again. The crowd is going wild!”
Of course, if the kid’s shot didn’t go through the
driveway hoop, he had the pretend announcer
say, “Wait! There was a foul on the play. Michael
Jordan still has a chance to win the game. There
he is at the line, cool as a cucumber ...”
When I was pretending to be Duke Snider, I had
never heard of author F. Scott Fitzgerald, who
said: “Show me a hero and I’ll write you a tragedy.”
It was probably just as well.
Lately it hasn’t been terribly easy for kids to
have heroes, to want to fantasize
about being someone
else.
Some recent examples
from the headlines:
The New York Jets of the
National Football League
traded for a cornerback
named Antonio Cromartie.
Mr. Cromartie is in the last
year of a five-year, $12 million
contract, but he reportedly
still needed a half-million-
dollar advance on his
contract from his new team.
That’s because the gentleman
_ only 25 years old _ has fathered seven
children by six women in five states, and what
the young women apparently lacked in knowledge
of birth control, they make up for in knowing
all about paternity suits, of which there have
been at least five.
I don’t think too many kids would like to be Antonio
Cromartie, who has also had brushes with the
law and has often been disciplined by his coaches.
Neither, probably, would they want to emulate
quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, despite his
having led the Pittsburgh Steelers to two Super
Bowl championships.
For the second time, Roethlisberger last week
was accused of sexually assaulting a woman, this
one a 20-year-old college student.
Maybe he’s innocent, as he claims, and maybe
he’s not. What’s not in dispute is that the 28-yearold
is a chowderhead.
Drinking in a bar with college girls 30 miles
away from one of his residences isn’t terribly
bright. Neither was refusing to wear a helmet
while driving his motorcycle, a policy that almost
got him killed in a nasty accident in 2006.
Nah, if you’re a kid, you don’t want to be Ben Roethlisberger,
even if you could spell his last name.
Marion Jones’ name is much easier to spell,
and for several years, she could run faster than
any other woman on the planet. It wouldn’t be far fetched
to think that a lot of girls running around
a track during gym class might think that it must
be great to be the multimillionaire track star.
That, of course, was before Marion Jones was
sentenced to six months in prison for lying to investigators
about using performance-enhancing
drugs and being part of a check-fraud scam.
Stripped of the five medals she won on steroids
at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, and reportedly
broke, on Wednesday, Jones, now 34 and the
mother of three, signed a $35,000 rookie contract
play basketball for the publicity-starved WNBA
Tulsa Shock.
Unfortunately, there are many more examples of
athletes whose actions make them unworthy of a
child’s adulation. To name just a few: Tiger Woods,
Michael Vick, Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds, Mark
McGwire, Alan Iverson and Kobe Bryant.
My favorite number has always been 4. I’d ask
for it on every Little League or recreation league
team I ever played on. That’s because the subject
of so many of my childhood “I’m Duke Snider” moments
wore No. 4 when he played for the Dodgers.
Then, in 1995, Duke Snider pleaded guilty to
federal tax fraud charges stemming from failing
to report income from sports card shows and
memorabilia sales.
I didn’t want to be Duke Snider anymore.
Still, I want to believe that there are many more
good people _ Derek Jeter, Alonzo Mourning and
Warrick Dunn spring to mind _ who play sports
than there are nogoodniks. I want to believe that
there are still athletic heroes more known for
feats of glory than feet of clay.
I want to believe, but it’s far more important
that somewhere in America as you read this,
a kid swinging a broomstick at a rubber ball
believes it, too.
SAM POLLAK is the editor of The Daily Star. He can be reached
at spollak@thedailystar.com or at (607) 432-1000, ext. 208.
