Fallen Heroes

Have you heard about baseball home run record holder, Mark McGwire? Well, it appears Mark fueled his power hits with some muscle enhancing juice (i.e. steroids) and he has finally admitted to cheating. In his announcement, McGwire was all sadness and regret. A few tears may have leaked their way out as he spoke of the difficulty in coming forward and sharing the regrettable news with his family and friends. In the same breathe, McGwire seemed to back peddle a bit as he tried to convince us that he was a proven home run hitter in his high school, college and minor league years -- pre roids presumably. He would have us believe that the performance enhancing drugs were not a factor in his stellar at bat performance. What?! Sorry, I ain't buying it. And then there is Tiger Woods. I won't even get into that whole situation.

Sports are not necessarily my thing. I'm not what you would call a baseball fan. I am familiar with the game and appreciate the history, it's slower pace and reliance on the strange combination of power, patience and precision. Baseball includes a great deal of tradition and pride. McGwire, like so many other recent players, has diminished the legacy of baseball as America's favorite past time. Beyond this, what I'm really disturbed by is the loss of heroes. Listening to the radio this morning and hearing the news of McGwire's fall from grace, I thought of the little kids who may have once admired the player. Perhaps they are older now -- teens or young adults. Maybe they wore his jersey, collected his baseball cards, idolized McGwire for his amazing feats on the field. To many, he was a hero . . . someone to emulate and look up to. He represented possibility, effort and hope. Not anymore. Same goes for Tiger. Turns out he's just a guy who had a cocktail waitress in every city.

Who are our heroes today? Do we even have any? Are heroes the stuff of Greek mythology and science fiction? Is it wrong to impart such high expectations onto a mere human? Is this too much of a burden to place on one individual? And, why does the fall of yet one more "hero" trouble me so greatly? I think we all need role models, people to look up to and pattern ourselves after, gold standards to measure ourselves against. It is in the light of comparison to these admirable examples that we are able to identify our own shortcomings, seek to make improvements and become better people. When we have no one to emulate, how low does our own bar drop?

Now, I'm not suggesting that we don't have great people walking among us each and everyday. We do. Beloved family, loyal friends, trusted colleagues, volunteers, kind neighbors are all around us. These people are heroes in their own right. Perhaps we need to talk more about these behind-the-scenes heroes, focus on the everyday and little acts of beauty in the world all around us. Stop focusing on these mega-stars and sports gods. They only seem to disappoint us in the end. And I, for one, am sick and tired of being continually disappointed.