What have you done for me lately? That's a sports cliche regarding firing coaches, managers, etc. As in, yeah, you won two Super Bowls for a team that tried four other times, but we haven't won in a while so we're letting you go, Shanahan. I don't like Mike Shanahan or the Denver Broncos and this isn't even about the firing and hiring of coaches. But it is about people forgetting that Bill Walsh didn't invent the forward pass and that Emmitt Smith isn't the greatest running back ever.
Sports are a metaphor for our daily lives. If not a metaphor, at least a microcosm. Every president we have is the worst president ever while in office and gets better as he gets further away from the office (Dumbya notwithstanding). Life is terrible and hasn't ever been this bad. Things are wonderful and we've never had it so good. See where I'm going with this? Same with sports. Nobody has ever been as good as [fill in blank with today's latest phenom]. Every sportscasters uses hyperbole for each and every play. To hear them tell it, every week results in the greatest play they've ever seen. Nobody remembers and it started with playing sports for ridiculous amounts of money. The players, with few exceptions, don't care about the history of the game, they just care about the financial bounty awaiting them if they play it at a high level. Which is why it's always surprising when players actually work on their own time to correct deficiencies in their games. If the players don't keep the history alive, why should the fans care? I remember memorizing record books and knowing every all-time and season record for every sport (not hockey; hockey's not a sport; it's mayhem and chaos with surendipitous scoring). Every game I watched was a potential for a record-breaker. That doesn't happen today (notable exceptions, Tiger Woods and Peyton Manning).
Why is it that today everyone marvels at Peyton Manning practicing with his receiving core to establish timing and understanding each other's idiosyncrasies? Pretty soon people will forget the throws Marino used to make routinely that quarterbacks are lauded for making today. Now, I'm not going to write that Marino was the greatest QB ever because he wasn't and never will be. The greatest quarterback ever was and always will be Johnny Unitas. Why? Simple. He played when all the rules in football applied to all the players. Specifically, he played in an age where you were actually allowed to tackle the quarterback. There was no such thing as the slide to avoid contact. Moreover, roughing the passer usually required a stretcher.
That's not all. The field changed, the pass interference rules changed, and the ball changed. First, the field changed. Who remembers when the hashmarks were where the numbers are? What did that do? It eliminated one side of the field or another if it was the short side for runs and defenses were able to use the sideline as a twelfth defender. Pass interference? You were allowed to slap, hit, forearm, push, gouge, etc., until the ball was in the air. Think about it. A defender had to watch the QB while he was defending so he would stop whacking the guy when the pass was thrown. Wouldn't that make refereeing easier. The ref watches the QB until he throws the ball and then turns his attention to the object of the pass. If there's a touch of any kind, that's interference. Finally, the ball. It is now aerodynamically designed to fly straighter and truer. It is also, much easier to tuck under the arm for running backs. Go back and look at what Jim Brown was carrying around or what Johnny U was throwing and let me know if the players today could remotely be able to deal with that.
Players today could not deal with the other factors that the players in the 50s and 60s were dealing with. Not to mention that everyone of the players from those eras needed another job in the off season and sometimes during the season. Some guys had trouble getting to practice because they couldn't get out of their jobs in time. In those days, a $100 fine was punitive. Then there was the travel and how they had to travel. This is without mentioning the racial unrest that was in the country and in sports.
Next you have the way baseball was played and how it's played now. Players didn't have 50 bats waiting for them and could break one an inning and still have one. Players had two or three bats total and it was a chore to get new ones. There were no big endorsement deals to supplement their salaries. Ted Williams used to go to the bat manufacturing lumber yards to hand pick the wood to be used for his bats. And the way umpires throw out baseballs today, you'd think these things were made in Third World countries by slave labor (oh, sorry, sore subject). Players used to play until the baseballs were truly unplayable. That meant no longer round or with torn stitching. Go to a baseball game and count how many baseballs are thrown out by umpires in that particular game and I will bet that the amount would equal what a team used to go through in a month.
Baseball is the king of all sports because it embraces everything we like about competition and highlights the characters of the game. When Gaylord Perry got repeatedly accused of throwing a spitball (which only became illegal in 1920, although each team was allowed to designate 2 pitchers who could legally throw it; the next year it was completely outlawed, except of course for all active pitchers throwing it who were grandfathered in until they retired), it was considered quaint and entertaining. Perry basically getting undressed by umpires looking for where he kept his stash was exceedingly comical and folksy.
Another bit of sports lore found endearing in baseball was stealing signs. Famously, Bobby Thompson's "Shot Heard 'Round the World" was allegedly a product of sign stealing. In baseball, the response by true fans was and is, "so what?" It's a nuance of the game that makes it endearing and enduring. So when you tell me that Belichick filmed the Jets' sideline signal caller, I am prone to say, "so what?" I find it almost ridiculous that, in football, if one team's electronic equipment fails, the other team is required to turn theirs off. My answer would be, "tough, get better equipment."
Nowadays, the outcry against performance enhancing drugs is deafening, but it is the legacy of baseball that a player will try to gain every edge possible, even if it means hollowing out a bat and filling it with cork. "Who cares?" we say in baseball. All you have to do is catch the player. When you do, he's punished, but you don't take away the homeruns that occurred before. If so, you'd have to decide which games Gaylord Perry won using the spitball, which was considered cheating (most likely, it's all of them) and then toss him from the Hall of Fame. Or not. Ty Cobb is still in there and he makes today's bad boy athletes look like choir boys. I would propose that by attaching the "drug" moniker to these substances is part of the influence. Many of these substances are supplements that are used every day by people looking to increase their muscle gains. But because today baseball wants nothing but natural freaks to be their poster boys, anything remotely enhancing health or recovery is banned. Remember, even anabolic steroids were not outlawed in baseball until very, very recently. So you can't say it was cheating.
The other part of baseball that is charming is the way stars were treated. They were respected and revered. But they were not coddled. In fact, even today, baseball is the one sport that doesn't go out of its way to create stars. They let the stars shine and reap the benefits of that stardom in their later years. We all know that when Ted Williams was at bat and he took a borderline 2-0 pitch, the umpire was more than likely to call it a ball because of Teddy Ballgame's renowned reputation for having a discerning eye. Whitey Ford and Sandy Koufax got borderline strike calls because they were, well, Whitey Ford and Sandy Koufax. It didn't change the game's outcome. Those umpires didn't call balls strikes or vice versa, but if close, a star got the benefit of the doubt.
Now we get to the star-making sports machine: the NBA. No other sport uses its rules and the enforcement of those rules to create more stars than the NBA. The NBA is like the movie studios of the 40s and 50s. Just show up with charisma and we'll do the rest to make you a star. Nobody questions that Michael Jordan was supremely gifted as an athlete, but do we really need to call a foul every time he misses a shot or fail to call a foul when he, say, as a pure hypothetical, pushes off Bryan Russell to make the winning shot in the NBA Finals? He doesn't need help to be great if he is great. Larry Bird (one of my least favorite players of all time) had a great quote in an Eastern Conference final between his Pacers and the Bulls. After watching Scottie Pippen (maybe the single most over-rated player of all time) get away with foul after foul guarding Reggie Miller, Bird said, "If Pippen had to guard Jordan, he'd foul out in the first 5 minutes."
The latest anointed "star" is LeBron James. Before you start, I agree he is a great physical specimen and he has great basketball skills. That said, he doesn't need a complete pass to greatness. He's big and strong, but he's not a finesse player despite his claims that he is. Charles Barkley once said of Karl Malone, "If I had his body, I'd be the greatest power forward that ever lived." He meant that Malone did not attempt to improve and utilize his gifts to their potential. The same goes for LeBron James. Does he really need to be the best 3-point shooter on his team. Well, Michael Jordan improved his outside shooting so James feels he has to as well. Why? When you're 6'8" and weigh 250 lbs, you just go to the hoop all day and every lay-up is a potential 3-point play. Why won't he? It's too hard.
Meanwhile, the NBA has legitimate stars and exceptional athletes. It is possibly the one sport that the athletes playing today may be better than their predecessors (golf is probably one too, but it's not a team sport). You look around the league and wonder why there isn't more focus on players that didn't get elevated to the throne. The main example that comes to mind is Dwyane Wade. He puts everything onto the floor every time he suits up. He is clutch and is willing to accept the burden of carrying his team, even if his team isn't worth carrying. Then, he sacrifices his body on virtually every play. He plays better defense, is a better passer, and has a higher basket ball IQ than LeBron James ever will. What's the difference? He's 3 inches shorter and 50 lbs lighter. So he cannot attack at will or he will be crushed by the big bodies underneath. More importantly, he has the heart of a champion and James just doesn't. Yeah, James pays lip service to "being all about winning", but it seems he only wants to win in the regular season.
Today the debate is who are the greatest quarterbacks that ever lived? Joe Montana, John Elway, Dan Marino, Brett Favre, Tom Brady, or Peyton Manning. Not a single mention of Johnny U. The qb that not only executed the 2minute drill better, he invented it. Not a word about Sammy Baugh or Otto Graham or Bart Starr (the Joe Montana of his day). Too much is made in football about Super Bowl Championships like life did not exist before 1966. When I hear a reporter actually say that "LeBron James is the greatest athlete ever to play in Cleveland" I want to run (not fly, run) to Cleveland and hit him with a record book from the NFL and see if he's ever heard of Jim Brown. Jim Brown gained over 12,000 yards in 4 12-game and 5 14-game seasons. 114 games. Do the math. He averaged over 100 yards a game for his career. FOR HIS CAREER!!! He also averaged over 5 yards a carry and had 104 TDs in 114 games. Plus he did it as a Black man in an white man's world where he was subjected to all kinds of abuse, mental and physical. Lebron James would have to average a triple double for his career to exceed that level of greatness.
All I'm saying is go back and watch films or read reports of these players past. I don't mean the glowing references written well after their careers are past (much like past presidents, some old-timers get better with age). I mean the reporting of the games as they were played. But more importantly, watch films. Watch Dr. J virtually sacrifice his offensive game to play suffocating defense on Larry Bird. Watch Jim Brown carry a football or Johnny U execute the 2 minute drill like never before or since. See Jerry West or Oscar Robertson play with a never-ending passion. Witness the sheer joy of Willie Mays playing the game he loved and still loves. And never forget that all-time greats did not start showing up last week.
