Tuesday, June 01, 2010
Think It Through
There is an organization at Values dot com that puts up billboards highlighting someone who has accomplished great things and encouraging others to do likewise with the words "Pass it on." The one I have seen most often around town is of a woman who fostered 100 children. Being a foster mom to needy kids is a great thing to do. However, the one I saw a couple times in Youngstown this weekend made me do a double take in my mind when I thought about it. It was a picture of Babe Ruth, with the phrase "From orphanage to Hall of Fame." Now, making the Baseball Hall of Fame is a special accomplishment. It puts you in the league of extraordinary athletes. However, was not Babe Ruth also a raging alcoholic and a womanizer? Is this another case of ignoring an athlete's troubled private life if he can perform on the field? Or is it a case where someone didn't think it through?
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2 comments:
Barb, I too have a problem with "canonizing" someone like Babe Ruth merely because he could have ended up worse. Sure, baseball helped him channel the energy he had or else he might have just ended up being some type of low-life. But we can't all make the major leagues. So young people need to be shown heroes who overcame obstacles, turned out OK and went on to work in banks, offices or factories like the rest of us. These people don't usually make it to billboards.
BTW, that would be a good epitaph for my tombstone: "Here lies Pauli. He could have been a lot worse."
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