Oy Ankiel
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by Hirp
Well, another day and another scandal. The landscape of sports has been forever changed, and in all likeliness it changed long ago. We’re just now getting the memo. One of the greatest stories in baseball this year has been the resurrection and reinvention of Rick Ankiel and his career. His troubles with throwing a strike are well documented and his inspiring return to the show as a slugging outfielder is the stuff movies are made of. Good sports movies like The Natural, Rudy and Rocky too.
But now his name has been linked to HGH, and the court of public opinion long ago discarded due process, which means any accusations have some merit. Unless you’re Lance Armstrong and it’s the French making the accusations. So this triumphant return is starting to feel dirty. It really doesn’t even matter at this point if he did or didn’t take something. The damage is done. We’ll always wonder, not just about him, but everyone else. The other feel good story this year in baseball, has been Josh Hamilton. He’s a guy who was a #1 draft pick, but his career was derailed by drug use before ever making it to the Major Leagues. He got clean, was given a second chance, and made good on it. Another storybook story, the kind we like to feel is a testament to the “American way of life.”
But given the current state of sports, we’d be fools to not at least consider how he made it back. I like the story, and want to believe in its innocence and integrity. Only mama didn’t raise no fool. We’re talking about a guy who took drugs, and those drugs were behind his fall to begin with. It’s not out of the realm of possibility that he began using some other drugs to return to the game and chase his dream. And even if he did, it’s still a powerful story. It’s still a guy who lost everything and found a way to get it all back. We’re idiots to assume our hero’s play by the rules. We like to think they do, and that’s what makes them different from us. But how many people, especially successful ones, always play nice? The guy at work that gets along with every one isn’t usually the boss.
Maybe it’s time we stop being naïve, and just appreciate them for how far they can hit a ball or how fast they can run. Superman may have done it naturally, but that’s because he was playing in a world that wasn’t his. Spiderman’s webs weren’t the result of hard work and Jenna Jameson is working with a body science gave her. If you believe in Jesus, it isn’t like he was playing on the same field as everyone else. I’m sure its real tough to be a great leader when your dad is actually God. Our heroes have never been like us. I could dose myself with HGH for the next 5 years, and I still wouldn’t be able to hit a curveball.
All that aside, it still sucks. I hate hearing a story about someone or seeing an athlete accomplish something great, only to later realize there’s more to the story. I don’t know if we should just blame them, since they are responsible for their own actions. Or perhaps we should blame the media. I also don’t know what’s worse, knowing when something isn’t kosher or all the times we didn’t know something wasn’t kosher. So maybe it’s our fault, we put our own expectations on these guys and we decide what they and their actions mean to us.
