Originally posted by DanL53:
Babe Ruth, legendary baseball player and cigar smoking, woman chasing, lush. Loved by fans as much for his bombastic charisma as for his kindness (He often visited children in orphanages and hospitals.) When he could no longer play, he was denied several jobs in baseball mostly due to some of his behaviors while he played the game. I think it is fair to say Ruth is a legend among baseball fans today. Don't we even have kids playing in leagues named after him? And, he is in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Hell, he is a big reason there is one.
Magic Johnson. One of the best basketball players ever. Chased women around while he was a married man and ended up HIV-positive. Yet several years later a sitting President said, "For me, Magic is a hero for anyone who loves sports."
I could keep bringing up men like these.
Why are we able to give fond memory to these men who were certainly less than Saints? Does anyone still have to explain it? Who are we?
"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses, yearning to breath free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door."
We aren't so special ourselves, and we embrace that in who we are. And we love that we can rise above ourselves.
And this from someone closer to home, "To be a tough, rugged boy is every lad's ambition. But to be a gentleman, to be kindly, charitable, thoughtful as well as tough and rugged is much more to be desired. And he who can be both is much the better man and usually much tougher in the long run.", Nile Kinnick
Kindly, charitable and thoughtful? So said the guy who's name is on the Stadium.
We could have given Roy Marble a much better moment. If we did not because we took a measure of a man and found him lacking? Than we who took the measure are lacking ourselves.