Within the dead of winter.

Iriish Night At Shea 2008

It’s the dead of winter and yet all I want is for the baseball season to start.
I’m going through baseball withdrawal. Its clear cut and unmistakable, it begins with the final out of the World Series, and doesn’t end until mid February when all the teams begin the quest for the pennant.
However, with friends about to lose their homes, I can’t get too excited about some guy getting $161 million for chasing a ball around a field for 6 months out the year.
I chuckle to myself when I think of this; how much would Ruth or Gehrig be worth today?
Did Hank Aaron need steroids?
NO!
Did Sandy Koufax?
NO!
Did Roberto Clemente? (May he rest in peace.)
NO!
Aaron, Koufax and Clemente came from a time and place where they were expected to give their best and gave their best and then some. I bet none of these three men thought about using performance enhancement drugs.
The guys who are playing today are overpaid and have way too much time on their hands, which usually lead to someone getting trouble or killed. Think Plaxico Burress here, yes, I know, he’s a football player, to me, it’s the same difference. He gets paid to play on a field, and goes out for fun with a gun. How stupid can you be?
Whatever happened to playing for the love of the game?
I can think of the top of my head two people who played that way recently, Cal Ripken and George Brett, two classy guys who spent their entire careers with one team, which is unheard of nowadays, two men who played for the love of the game.
I strongly believe that is you use any illegal drug in any sport; you should be banned for life with all records achieved expunged and the banned person should forget about playing ever again.
Maybe then, the drug using ball player should get a job doing something constructive somewhere else, like cleaning up the rubble in Gaza.
Roberto Clemente died helping others, his plane, the one carrying aid to earthquake victims, went down south of Florida on New Years Eve 1972.
To me, Roberto Clemente is a shining example of what a ball player should be, caring, compassionate and more than willing to help those in need.
Ball players like Roberto Clemente hardly exist anymore.