I was lazing back last night,  feet up, the constant drumming of February rain keeping time and harmony with John Chancellor's warm narrative, drifting away in The Seventh Inning of Ken Burns' Baseball.  Its been 15 years since it first aired. Nineteen Ninety Four. And its been dusted off by the new MLB network to fill airtime until the season begins.

I sat there last night, with vague childhood memories.  Vaguely remembered  stories about the careers of Williams, and DiMaggio and Campanella and Robinson winding down.  The more familiar careers of Mays, Snider, Mantle, Ford, and Koufax in ascent.  It reminded me again of the ever-changing of the guard from one generation to the next. And that no matter how hard we try, we cannot make time stand  still.

I watched again and listened again as  familiar voices spoke of that decade between 1950 and 1960. The Giants, Yankees, and Dodgers. The three best teams of their time.  Bob Costas, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Roger Angell, Robert Creamer, Donald Hall,  Shirley Povich, George Will and others.  Only today, I view some of them with perhaps a little less affinity, if not trust

And then it struck me.  John Perricone, in a most poignant and salient piece, was able to contextualize this whole mess called the "steroid era" as bad a term as that may be, by writing something that was as profound as it was obvious.

"These writers are defending their childhood memories, and poorly at that. They are, in effect, saying that these players  aren't as good as their heroes were, therefore, they are cheating."

But of course these players are as good as the writer’s heroes were. The past is always wonderful. We can make it any way we want. It is only fettered by our imagination, wishful thinking, and the very natural human instinct to avoid remembering, painful events and facts.

The predecessors of those in today’s MSM were not as kind to Willie Mays nor Willie McCovey as some would have us believe.  Mays was just as likely to be denigrated  as a hot dog for letting his cap fly as he was to be recognized for his contributions.  His patented basket catches were "setting a bad example" for young players and teaching them bad habits. And if he dare strand a runner in scoring position in a key game, he was chided for not being clutch.  If he missed an interview, he was rude, uncaring, or aloof.  

And because Mac had a very long and loping stride, he was mistakenly called out for loafing and being a lazy runner.  Like many  products of  a 1940s and 50s  Alabama education, he was not the most articulate guy when he first came up at the age of 21. As a result, many fans who just like today echo what they hear and see in MSM,  often mocked him.  I had never heard  that kind of  hateful vile from grown-ups before.  It wasn’t a lot of people, but enough to scare me.

In an ill-fated attempt to make room in the lineup for both he and Cepeda, the Giants forced Mac into the outfield for parts of the 62, 63, and 64 seasons.  Mac made 14 errors in LF in 63 to lead the team.  And he caught hell from the media as a result. The terms were unflattering to say the least.  

So Mays was a hotdog, and McCovey was lazy and dumb, and Cepeda had a hard time with English. But in the end their biggest crimes were not about that at all.  They were all guilty of not being Joe DiMaggio. At that time, the greatest player ever to come out of the Bay Area.

As a kid, I can remember endless references to the DiMaggio brothers, Joe, Dom and Vince.  Everywhere I went. Joe this and Joe that.  Joe was more graceful than Willie.  Joe never lost his cap.  Joe never made stupid basket catches.  Joe never stranded a base runner in his life. Joe beat Bill Brasky at dominoes and won World War II single-handedly and he never did anything wrong or even spit on the sidewalk.  Even my grandfather would get in on the act and regale me with  DiMaggio anecdotes. And he hadn't lived in the country on a regular basis since 1926!  

Be that as it may, it was Mays time. And it was McCovey’ s time. And all the others who came along in the 50s and 60s.  And to be sure there was resentment of the new guys. There always was. And there always will be. But it was their time.  Not only at the plate, in the field and on the mound, but outside the lines too.  Different values, different pressure. More money. Jet lag, and night games became the norm. Every ballplayer had to prepare himself in his own way.

From the time they are little kids, ballplayers are taught: prepare, prepare, prepare. To study the game.  To condition the body. Why?  To get an advantage over his opponent. Isn't that the whole point?  To get an edge. Ty Cobb filed his spikes. Hank Aaron took Greenies.  Babe Ruth was a practicing alcoholic as was Grover Cleveland Alexander. They all did things that were considered socially unacceptable. They made bad choices, caught diseases, did stupid things, and otherwise behaved just like every other human being who is predisposed to doing risky things.  Which is what competitive sports is all about.  Risky behavior.  Where risky behavior crosses the line into malfeasance is beyond the scope of this post however.

There are fewer things more vapid, than justifying a wrong by pointing to another wrong.  And that is not the purpose of citing these things and players from prior eras. Each ballplayer does different things than the players before him and certainly different than those that will succeed him.  Gaylord Perry and MSM would routinely yuck it up whenever the topic of his spitter came up.  He wrote a book about it. He still went into the hall of fame and his "cheating" was nothing more than a source of bad one-liners  for most.  Something in which I totally concur. 

Sammy Sosa corked bats.  Though "illegal", corking bats actually results in a minute drop in distance that a hit ball will travel.  Sammy Sosa was not the sharpest knife in the drawer.  Would Ruth’s or Aaron’s accomplishments be less if their bats had been corked?  Would they be greater?  One thing is for sure.  They are smarter than Sammy Sosa.  But, what if Ruth had had to bat against Satchel Paige, Smoky Joe Williams, Bullet Joe Rogan, Willie Foster and the rest of the excluded Negro Leaguers?  Is Ruth any less "Ruthian" as a result?  What if Henry had to play at the Stick like Mays, would he have had as many jacks as he did at the Atlantal Space Launch facility?  Is he any more diminished by a rigged ballpark?  I think, not. Point. Counterpoint. Blah. That steroids are against the rules and not legal in some cases is a result of politics and incomplete science.

Success, achievement, recognition is not a zero-sum game. Just as a father can love an only child, he can also love two, three, four, five or however many children he has. Both collectively and individually.  The esteem and favor in which one is held, is not diminished by the esteem and favor of the others.

It seems to me that peds are more of a political issue, backed by poorly thought out legalities and even less objective science and serve as little more than a vehicle for the nostalgia ridden to castigate those who have succeeded their heroes from the past.  I was three months old when Babe Ruth died from cancer.   I was mad at him for a long time for doing that. And when I was a little boy it really upset me that I never got to see Christy Mathewson or John McGraw.  I thought life was horribly unfair that Lou Gehrig had to die so young.  Or that Willie Mays never showed for my Cub Scout troop.  Or that Billie Martin died drunk in a car wreck.

And every fall when everything dies I remember Wilver Stargell and how unfair it all seems sometimes.  And I remember Pops'  Game 7, sixth inning  homerun to take the lead and secure the World Series in 1979.  We were Family as Sister Sledge sang.  In 1985, Dale Berra and Dave Parker accused him of distributing greenies in Federal Court. Whether true or untrue, it does not take away one iota of admiration and respect for Pops. Nothing.  Pops had to do what every professional does to keep his edge.  Did  whatever it took to maximize his level of performance.  For the record, he denied the accusations. For the record, I don't care.

Did methamphetamines contribute to Pop’s untimely stroke and death in 2001?  We will never know.  We can only remember with great fondness the smiles, the thrills and heart-stopping fun we had watching him .  And if at the end of ones life, one can say, that he gave everything he had to his vocation to be the best he could be, and in the process enriched the lives of millions of fans,  who are we to wag a finger at him. 

I understand these things. You understand these things if you love this game. Nobody misses the days of Willie Mays and Willie McCovey and Orlando Cepeda and Juan Marichal and Gaylord Perry more than me.(Mainly because I am older than most)  And when we see Mac on crutches, crippled by disease and injury for the rest of his life, it makes us horribly sad. As I felt when Mickey Mantle and Billie Martin died much too young. And when Lyman Bostock was murdered, and Donnie Moore took his own life.  

But no matter how sad their departure from the game. No matter how vivid the memories of their feats, their time has passed. The old ballplayers know that. It is a sad thing for awhile.  Most get over it and move gently beyond to join the rest of us.  Some manage the transition with great style, and gentle humor, but mostly with great memories and the gratitude that for awhile in their lives, they were the best at what they did.

A few turn overly  somber or bitter.  And some of them, like so many in media,  think that any recognition and honor that comes to the next generation will somehow minimize the work of the prior generation.  But it doesn’t.  Their accomplishments stand alone. Just as the accomplishments of Bonds, Rodriguez Magwire and Clemens stand alone, so do those of Roger Maris,  Babe Ruth, Henry Aaron, Frank Robinson, Ty Cobb and Grover Cleveland Alexander.  

With or without peds.  With or without Black ballplayers. With or without drugs, mental disorders, bigotry or any manner of personality defects. Their accomplishments and achievements still stand.  Baseball is still the greatest institution in the history of Western Civilization.  So great in fact,  it can withstand the  cash burning contract of  one Barrack Zito, and not have to ask for a stimulus package.  And if you really think about it, that’s one hell of an accomplishment.