Lessons for athletes
Dear Editor: This is indeed a beautiful time of the year as football returns front and center and that makes no one happier than me as I am tired of hearing about the woes of baseball.
MLB killed the game of baseball when they went on strike in 1994. I found myself inwardly hoping that they would strike again this season and thus finish the job that they had started.
The Babe brought the game back once, Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle did their part as did Henry ‘Hammer’n Hank’ Aaron. In more recent memory, McGuire and Sosa succeeded in bringing the game back with their dramatic home run race, but in retrospect, isn’t the home run record a little tainted as it has become quite evident that most of the power hitters appear to be in the “juice”?
I love to watch “Classic Sports” on ESPN as they show re-runs of some of the greatest contests ever played in the sporting arena.
It never ceases to amaze me when they happen to air a re-run of an old Oakland A’s game and you see just how normal the physiques of the “Bash Brothers” Jose Conseco and McGuire looked.
Or they show Barry Bonds when he was with the Pirates or a young Sammy Sosa.
I am sure that there are those that have played sports and lifted weights as I have and can understand as I do that there is no way weight training alone made these guys the physical monsters that they are.
Remember the TV spots that former Denver and Oakland defensive wonder Lyle Alzado made prior to his death?
It was a shame watching Alzado in that condition. He wore a bandanna because his hair had fallen out, his face was sunken and his skin looked unnaturally pale as he attempted to warn others not to do what he had done to himself by using the “juice.”
I wonder if we will see McGuire or Conseco or Sosa or Bonds or some other MLB player doing TV spots much like the ones that the late great Lyle Alzado did?
The shame of it all is the fact that today’s kids, today’s aspiring athletes with dreams of making it into the big leagues, see today’s supposed “heroes” on ESPN’s Sports Center hitting home runs and try to model themselves after these false gods.
As an example, look at the most recent edition of the Little League Championships that took place in Williamsport, Pa., as those 12-year-olds from Harlem flaunted and taunted their opponents in a very unsportsmanlike manner. At the plate they pointed to the stands with their aluminum bats as if to prepare ESPN for the upcoming home run that would be on this evening’s edition of Sports Center.
It was proven that seven of the kids on Harlem’s team actually lived outside the boundaries and should have been disqualified. The ruling committee decided to “overlook” the infraction. What kind of message did that send to Little League parents and coaches other than “It’s OK to lie and cheat.”
During last year’s Little League Championships, the 12-year-old pitching sensation was actually 14 years old and had submitted a “doctored” birth certificate, giving him a clear advantage over the younger kids.
Have we gotten to the point now where the parents and coaches of Little League teams feel the need to cheat in order to win? And what kind of message does this kind of behavior send to today’s youth?
These kids are supposed to be the ones to lead us deep into this century and all we are teaching them is to win at all costs, do whatever it takes, it’s OK to lie, to cheat, to steal, to flaunt and to take the “juice” because you will on Sports Center that evening.
Jim Campbell
Dunbar