By Ed Pierce
Managing Editor
Professional athletes are often saddled with spotty reputations for a exhibiting a lack of manners, using foul language or crude gestures and tirades to fans or critics. Yet in the vast wasteland of professional sports, I can bear witness to many unselfish acts that athletes have made to those who idolize them and follow their every move on and off the playing field.
When I was young, my father would take my brother Doug and me
to hockey games in Rochester, New York. The Rochester Americans played in the
American Hockey League and the roster in those days was filled with exciting young
athletes such as Jim Pappin, Mike Walton, Pete Stemkowski, Gary Unger and
Jean-Paul Parisé
along with a strong mix of established older players such as Al Arbour, Don
Cherry, Bronco Horvath and Dick Gamble.
The sharply
dressed man called Armstrong over and we chatted for a few minutes about what
he liked the most about hockey. The game was about to resume, so I said goodbye
and returned to my seat thrilled to have spent time chatting with one of my
hockey heroes.
The
game was nearing its final minutes of play when an usher came to my seat and
asked me to follow him back to the bench. Once there, the man who was wearing
the suit and tie introduced himself to me as Joe Crozier, the coach of the
team. He handed me a hockey stick that both he and “Red” Armstrong had
autographed for me. To me, that was a classy thing to do and I became an even
greater fan of the team in the days that followed.
Decades
later, I joined a friend and his son Jimmy in attending a spring training baseball
game in Viera, Florida between the Florida Marlins and the Baltimore Orioles.
My friend’s son had Down’s Syndrome and loved watching baseball and collecting
autographs.
Sitting
in the stands, my friend and I noticed a few Hall of Fame ballplayers sitting
together behind home plate. Jimmy saw them too and he walked over and asked for
their autograph. These two very famous ballplayers both turned down his request
saying they only signed autographs when they were paid for them. Jimmy was saddened,
but undeterred in his quest to obtain an autograph that day.
At
the start of the seventh inning, I noticed that Orioles starting shortstop, Cal
Ripken, Jr., was now out of the game and was running wind sprints on the gravel
warning track of the stadium along the outfield. Jimmy and I walked over to the
leftfield fence and when Ripken ran past us, he politely called out to him
asking for his autograph.
The
summer before that game, Ripken had broken Lou Gehrig’s all-time record for
consecutive games played and was assured of eventual induction to the Baseball
Hall of Fame himself. He stopped when Jimmy called out to him, turned around
and walked over to us. He smiled and spent five minutes chatting with us and
signed both a baseball and a small toy bat that Jimmy had brought to the game.
When
other fans saw Ripken speaking to us, they quickly gathered around him and for
the next two innings of the game and for another 30 minutes after the game had
ended, he graciously autographed anything people in the crowd asked him to, had
his photo taken with anyone who wanted one and shook hands with hundreds of
fans.
To
me, I came away from that experience thinking that Cal Ripken, Jr. was a humble
and down-to-earth individual who knew that baseball would be nowhere without
the fans and he wasn’t too proud to spend time with anyone who wanted a bit of
his attention.
It’s
a shame that more professional athletes couldn’t be more like Cal Ripken, Jr.
because he’s what I call “class personified,” someone to be admired for their
skill as an athlete and their behavior and respect for others outside of
sports. <
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