Back in the day, when the joy of sports was simply eating crackerjacks on a hot summer day, I watched Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire as they went head to head for the title of home run king. It captured the hearts of America, with millions of fans tuning in to witness a competition full of athleticism and brotherhood so great that it transcended race. As I grew up, headlines of corruption in the sports world began to inundate the news. In the past year alone, there have been scandals involving gun possession, steroid use and sexual infidelity. There is a painful awareness among sports fans that the heroes of our youth have fallen from grace.
It has reached a point where corruption is not only rampant among thugs in the NBA or steroid abusers in MLB. Even golf, the gentleman’s sport, has taken a tremendous hit from the Tiger Woods fiasco. My first moment of disillusionment occurred when the Mitchell Report revealed that my favorite pitcher, Andy Pettitte, had taken HGH. In the past decade, sports fans everywhere have undergone the Kubler-Ross cycle of grief many times: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and, finally, Acceptance. We are a breed of survivors who view the world with skepticism. Young fans are now being urged to disregard sports stars as idols and look up to local firefighters instead (God forbid Little Johnny wants to be like Michael Vick).
Nonetheless, I challenge this new wave of skepticism. Society loves creating heroes, and what better story than a fallen hero who is seeking redemption? Our world has evolved into a state where privacy is extinct. For prominent athletes, this means that sexual encounters with 15 mistresses will be witnessed and taking a hit out of a bong will be photographed. The outrage over the corruption in the sports world is a direct product of society packaging up ordinary young athletes, building a grandiose image and then hiding the fine print. They are superficially marketed as super-human beings for the sake of bolstering endorsements and injecting millions of dollars into franchises.
It should not be a shock that the Michael Jordan in advertisements is worlds apart from Michael Jordan himself. This vast difference in public persona and reality is what causes disillusionment when fans discover that their heroes are mortal.
But I urge fans of all ages to hold fast to their favorite athletes. Sports stars may not be saints, but they have a tremendous impact on our lives whether we turn a blind eye to their behavior or not. Sports are a fundamental part of our society, bolstering community spirit, raising city revenue, instilling local pride and achieving the physically impossible. Fans need to realize that their heroes deal with the same problems as ordinary people, but are being witnessed on an international stage. They face impossible standards of perfection and tremendous pressure and sometimes succumb to them, like we do. Insecurity and doubt lie beneath actions that may seem greedy.
Many have abandoned their fallen heroes, but I will continue to follow them with a grain of salt and my breath held. My joy of seeing Andy Pettitte win his first World Series in nine years was even sweeter, knowing that in between he had made a trip from hell and back, and came out of the fray a better man.