Feats of Clay : As Media Exposure Intensifies, Sports Heroes Continue to Crumble

“I always turn to the sports page first ... they record people’s accomplishments; the front page, nothing but man’s failure.” --EARL WARREN,former chief justice

A quaint notion, don’t you think? These days, if a judge glances at the sports section over his morning coffee, it is to get a jump on the next day’s docket, gather background.

The sports page--it is a diary of the American scream. Drugs, occasional violence, lawlessness and a general disregard for all the civilizing niceties.

You read the sports page and you know too well that athletes’ foibles have long since escalated into felonies. We needn’t recite them, but:

--This spring there was a startling number of incidents involving gunplay and forcible rape. Among college athletes!

--There were the usual announcements of stars going into and out of drug rehabilitation.

--A man called Charlie Hustle is being investigated for gambling.

--An NFL player was suspended for suspected drug use on the eve of the Super Bowl.

It is no longer possible to surprise. On the eve of the Super Bowl!

Rather, police action has become an accepted part of sport’s byplay. USA Today, for instance, includes a regular and understated feature called “Jurisprudence.” And The Times’ Newswire, a sports feature that gathers up the day’s newsy odds and ends, has degenerated into an 800-word column of legalese. It reads like Crimewatch.

But you know too well.

It’s just that, it seems, this sordid news, this unwelcome byproduct of other-worldly money and exposure, sport’s toxic waste you might say, is lately threatening the media’s flood walls. No, there doesn’t seem to be anything terribly new; the Babe had a few pops in his day and, as far as that goes, how can you top the Chicago Black Sox?

But the sheer amount of the news, it seems, is shocking. Day, after day, after day. The pool of slime slaps against the flood walls. It seems to lap over . . .

Baseball catches our attention just now. Perhaps because more than any other sport it incorporates a tradition of innocent boyhood, we are especially surprised to find fallen heroes, grown adult in all the worst ways.

Imagine Pete Rose being investigated for gambling. This hits home.

In Cincinnati, in the sixth grade, we gathered around a TV in our history class for Reds’ opening day. The rookie, even then acknowledged as an overachiever, was heralded for his head-first dives, his sprints to first on every walk.

Of all the athletes we would ever see, we understood back then: We could be like him.

Wade Boggs, a spectacular talent--who wouldn’t want to be like him?--becomes a one-man scandal. Well, he had help.

Steve Garvey. Senator Steve. In a surprising burst of potency, this most proper of all athletes-- maybe we couldn’t be like him athletically, but we should be like him otherwise--began fathering children left and right. Hardly remarkable except for his pious demeanor through a squeaky-clean career.

Most disappointing of all, he seemed to think it was all a mix-up over contraception.

What’s the meaning of all this? A 13-year-old boy hangs over the railing at Dodger Stadium before a game. He’s hoping for an autograph from one of his heroes. He’s got his glove, he wears a cap, holds a ball. The sun is shining, there is a crack of the bat. Remember when you went to a baseball game . . .

He has been waiting patiently, maybe even timidly behind the dugout. We ask him, more or less, what’s the meaning of all this.

He says: “It’s kind of lame, isn’t it?”

“I guess I’m not the same. I don’t like to say it, it’s w e ird, but I feel different since I got my picture in the newspapers ... like I’ll be driving my car and some guy will cut me off, you know, and I’ll think to myself, just who is this guy, cutting me off. When did he ever get his picture in the paper?” --JOHN McENROE, 1977

Today’s players, it seems a common-sense conclusion, are no more degenerate or obnoxious than yesteryear’s. They are no more degenerate than society as a whole.

Orel Hershiser may loom as an example of exaggerated decency but even the most cynical among us must admit that there are far more athletes like him than like Dwight Gooden, who submitted, however briefly, to drug abuse.

But it’s a different ballgame today. The average salary of a major league baseball player is more than $500,000. The opportunities for outsized behavior are obvious, the demands are bigger than you can guess, and perhaps the wonder is that these kids don’t get into more trouble, aren’t more obnoxious.

Maybe Ted Williams never did get flagged for doing 110 in a school zone, but then he didn’t have Jose Canseco’s disposable income and inclination toward fast machinery, definitely not his fame, at the age of 24.

And the scrutiny. This is old ground, but the biggest change in sports is not how it’s played, but how it’s reported. Sports stars always have been celebrities, much like movie stars. But whatever arrogance they acquired with their fame (“I got my picture in the paper”) was well hidden from the public. They were a protected species.

If you grew up, for example, in the 1950s, you found yourself in a culture that was very much hero-driven. Davy Crockett, Gen. Eisenhower. You were in a time that predated any morbid interest in our leaders, a time you may recall that became the Watergate Years.

You felt no need to know what Mickey Mantle did after the ballgame. In any event, nobody felt obliged to tell you. Rather, the news business was very much in the hero business, too. You were far more likely to read of somebody aboard PT 109 than aboard the Monkey Business.

Your heroes were untainted, never lame.

But the business of sports, and the reporting of it, became increasingly sophisticated. You can debate the change in our society, but there is no question something happened. Jim Bouton, who himself helped change how we think of sports heroes with his book, “Ball Four,” was on the Yankee team bus when he first saw it occur.

“The sportswriters of that day (circa 1960) had an agreement among themselves not to write about dissension,” says the former Yankee pitcher. “Their job, the way they looked at it, was to support the team.

“One day there was a fight on the bus and they didn’t want to write about it, didn’t want to create any more dissension. But Leonard Schecter (a prominent New York sportswriter) jumped off the bus and phoned it in.”

There was no holding back. You saw it everywhere. Men at one time dared ascend the presidency with entire histories of peccadilloes. A nation winked. Heroes were cut much slack. But then, it seems quite suddenly, looking back, moral standards were set and news gathering industries devoted themselves to holding heroes to these standards. Peccadilloes were discovered. A nation was affronted.

Fame was granted, by all the fame-giving agencies. But, now that it seemed so much more valuable, a price had been determined. The fame givers insisted on the privilege of taking a guy out, just as surely as they had propped him in front of the public. Inquiries were begun . “Show me a hero and I will write you a tragedy.” --F. SCOTT FITZGERALD

Our time has been notable for the conflagration of heroes. Success has proved little more than kindling--the more of it, the bigger the consuming fire. It’s only partly true that athletes today must answer for their increased fame and opportunities. It’s impossible to ignore that they’re doing far worse things than their athletic ancestors ever dreamed of.

Drugs are what we’re talking about principally. It is one thing to learn that Mickey Mantle came to the plate hung over, another to learn that the Pirates’ clubhouse had a cocaine connection.

The distinction may at times blur--one’s man’s nightcap is another man’s chemical abuse (of course, one is legal, the other not). But there is a distinction, at least in the depth of tragedy we endure.

Some of the greatest falls in our time have involved alcohol, but none have been as spectacular as those involving drugs.

The Dodgers’ Steve Howe, a brilliant relief pitcher, was on his way to secure superstardom when he tangled with cocaine. He was given chance after chance to overcome his problem, millions of dollars on the line.

You may have an idea of his problem to know that, even with those millions out there, and with all the help in the world, he kept falling. Again and again. Nothing could save him.

The National Basketball Assn., among all the sports, has suffered most from the pall that drugs cast over our society. Although the sport is not alone in burying its overdosed, it has felt the PR sting more sharply than any other. It reacted quickly and intelligently to the problem.

It was the first league to formulate any kind of plan. There were education, rehabilitation then finally elimination. Fair. But five players so far, the Steve Howes of basketball, have eluded this well-meaning salvation and been bounced from the league, tragic examples, success gone haywire.

Brian McIntrye, the league’s spokesman, says the depth of this tragedy suggests a problem that yesteryear’s stars never had to face. With drugs in the picture, he says, all bets are off.

“To get some feel for what’s going on, look at Stanley Wilson,” he says.

He refers to the Cincinnati Bengal who is accused of a drug relapse during Super Bowl week.

“That’s got to be some kind of stranglehold. I mean, the Super Bowl! How good was he waiting for it to get?”

Our surprise was only mild when, some time later, Charles Thompson, a junior quarterback at Oklahoma, was arrested, accused of selling drugs. Things were getting different by degrees, was all.

“Too many people think an athlete’s life can be an open book. You’re supposed to be an example. Why do I have to be an example for your kid? You be an example for your kid.”

--BOB GIBSON, 1970

There has been little research into the psychology of hero worship, as it applies to the wonder years. Yet it seems naive to suppose heroes aren’t important to a child’s development. It seems wishful thinking to hope that athletes gone bad won’t contribute to a premature cynicism.

Certainly this is an age in which heroes are more visible than ever. The expansion of leagues, the increased exposure of TV has not put heroes on a pedestal so much as on a buffet table.

Dr. Patricia Greenfield, a professor of psychology at UCLA, thinks TV is playing an increasing role in children’s development and, as an extension, so is sports.

“We know that TV has a greater influence in areas where other child experiences leave a vacuum,” she says.

In other words: “If a child doesn’t have heroes in real life, no parents or teachers, the media figures become more important. In fact, they are most important for the kids who are most needy.”

This is a bad time to be needy, she points out, now that “TV and media in general are going into personal lives. That’s going to cause some disappointment.”

You wonder, do today’s kids share some sacred trust with their heroes? Do they become disillusioned when the trust is violated? How damaged is the kid who had the Steve Howe poster up on his wall, and kept it and kept it up until finally, like Howe, he had to give it up?

What if we told you that a certain kind of crack, say the very “best” kind, is called Lenny Bias in a certain housing project in Washington, D.C.?

Nobody studies this, possibly preferring to examine the effects of a wrecked innocence somewhere down the line. Or maybe we underestimate the resilience, the worldliness, maybe even the compassion, of youth.

At Dodger Stadium, before the game, behind the dugout:

“I think that (media reports) shouldn’t make such a big deal out their personal lives. It’s kind of stupid that it matters so much.”

--Wayland O., 16, Alhambra

“If they fail like that, I’ll pick another one.”

--Roland M., 13, Upland

“I used to like Dwight Gooden, so I switched to Mike Scioscia.”

--Brian B., 13, Alta Loma

“I liked Steve Howe and I was a little upset because I didn’t think he needed drugs. I still like him, but mainly Pedro Guererro. If Pedro messed up, that would be a disappointment, but I’ll just wait till it comes.”

--Jeff T., 16, Canyon Country

The adult point of view is that kids are in jeopardy on all fronts these days. The newspaper is just another kind of street corner where they can learn poor examples, acquire dangerous role models. How would you like to be editor of Boys Life these days?

William McMorris, editor-in-chief of Boys Life: “It seems to me a great deal more information of this kind has been coming out. Perhaps the problem has always existed but, in Babe Ruth’s day, you didn’t talk about it and you didn’t write about it. Now players are very young and very rich and that combination, plus the availability of drugs . . . “

It can get embarrassing at Boys Life, where sports profiles are a regular feature.

“Had Dwight Gooden on the cover,” McMorris says, with a sigh. “Keith Hernandez.”

It seems hopeless.

“I don’t think we had to worry as much in the ‘50s and ‘60s as we do now. And I don’t think it’s going to get easier.”

Let’s try to put a good light on this. Maybe kids don’t necessarily learn to do drugs because one of their heroes stumbles. Maybe they learn something more when their fallen heroes overcome these obstacles, become upright.

“Compassion?” suggests Dr. Greenfield.

“I think that many of them, when they’re in the stadium, are privately gratified over the distress or defeat of a famous athlete. I think it pleases this kind of fan to know that even famous and moneyed heroes have to bow to the humiliations of life.” --FRAN TARKENTON, 1977 The failure of character is so varied among our sports heroes that it is difficult not to find some kind of reverse role model, or rather, somebody to identify with on a bad day. There is some athlete out there who is, except for being rich and famous, just like us. More so, of course, because public life is exaggerated.

But, damn! Wasn’t I late for work once? Didn’t I bet a game? Didn’t I cheat? Didn’t I give in to temptation?

Brian McIntyre of the NBA office acknowledges that he still enjoys the grace and skill of these athletes and he believes that most fans still do, too, bad news aside.

“We forget how this takes people away from problems,” he says.

At the same time, he believes that fans are surprisingly forgiving. Roy Tarpley came back from a drug problem recently and was cheered by the Dallas fans when he took the floor. You can hardly think of an athlete in similar circumstances who was not so welcomed. Gooden, Hernandez--the welcome is almost always astonishing.

Certainly business has not been hurt. Peter O’Malley, Dodger owner, is cautious, saying, “We’re not seeing the results” of the spring’s bad news in attendance figures, but adds that it may be too soon to tell.

Even so, attendance in every sport has continued to climb. NBA attendance, which went up 10% last season, has gone up more than 60% since 1983.

Nova Lanktree, who puts sponsors and athletes together in his job at Burns Sports Celebrity Service in Chicago, says: “We’re busier than we’ve ever been. The interest in current heroes has been fabulous.”

What about a sports hero time bomb, a Wheaties box star waiting to go into rehab?

What about it, she says.

“For most advertising, we’re not talking about a campaign for four-five years. The operative word is hot. Whatever is current now.”

She adds: “The fans are still going to games, and they are the consumers. As long as they’re spending money to see (athletes), sponsors will sign them up.”

There have been few notable advertising disasters so far. But some prize-winning Mike Tyson commercials--Kodak and Pepsi--were shelved when his marital life went public. Mostly, the ad world takes its chances. Whatever’s hot.

“Every hero becomes a bore at last.” --RALPH WALDO EMERSON We must ask ourselves what all this news, this relentlessly awful news, really means. You’d think it means something, bad or good. But Jim Bouton, who created so much of it when he told what ballplayers were really like, said, no, it doesn’t mean anything at all.

“The business with heroes,” he says, almost with disgust, “that’s the media. They’ve been selling this milk-and-cookies aspect for so long, no wonder they were surprised by my book. They were outflanked by a player, of all people.

“The fans, on the other hand, were not upset at all. They loved the book. They didn’t care whether Mickey Mantle hit home runs with a hangover. What’s more, they don’t care today either. They appreciate the skills it takes to do it. They like to root. Their problems? They could care less. It’s only a curiousity that Keith Hernandez or Wade Boggs gets in trouble.

“The only people that care? The media. Fans don’t give a whit. Makes them interesting. Fans have problems, too, and it’s a delight to know that these guys aren’t superheroes. What’s more, they knew it all along. They hear the news and it’s, ‘Of course. We already knew this. We’ve already seen this stuff.’

“Only the media and owners set up these impossible standards. And when they don’t live up to these impossible standards, the media is outraged. ‘We built you up, and now we find this out?’ ”

Oh, other people care. It seems silly, having been a kid once, to say that today’s kids are better off for integrating the experience of betrayal. Of course, it seems just as silly, having grown up, to say that the athlete’s responsibility to society has somehow increased as his wealth and exposure have.

Still, we remember the middle-aged woman in Dodger Stadium. Some kids in the row in front of her were volunteering their thoughts on heroes in crisis. “What about Steve Garvey!” she interrupted, her face inflamed.

You can very well ask what Steve Garvey, who played hard and clean and well every day, now owed this woman. All we can tell you is, she was furious.