Professional Sports: In a state of flux....capacitor.

Flash back to 1989. It's October, and the World Series is between Oakland and San Francisco. The Bay Bridge Series. The Bash Brothers. Will the Thrill. Jose Uribe. Brett Butler. Walt Weiss. Dennis Eckersley's mustache. All were in place for a great series between two teams that had little trouble dispatching their opponents in their respective League Championship Series. Although the Series was marked by an earthquake and domination by the A's (swept the Giants 4-0 and it was never in doubt), it was this baseball fan's dream. I watched every game, owned every single player's trading card (Topps, Fleer, Upper Deck, Bowman....I hoarded them) and knew the stats and hometown of every guy on the field. This was nothing new, as I was religious about sports back then. The NBA Finals and The Super Bowl were no different. I cried when the Pistons won the Finals in '88'- and '89 because I hated Laimbeer so much. I watched Joe Montana connect with Jerry Rice again and again in the '90 Super Bowl, slaughtering the Broncos 55-10. From 1987-1997, you could not keep me away from it. Emmitt and the Cowboys smacking the Bills down 52-17. The 1990 Reds who somehow pulled out a World Series win over the heavily favored A's. Jordan and the Bulls over the Blazers in 1992 and the Suns in 1993. Nique windmill slamming in the old Omni. Aaaah, the good ol days.

Then something happened. A disturbance in the Force (+6 for Star Wars reference, since I'm sure it was said in all of them) occurred.

**Sidenote: Sir Alec Guinness (Obi Wan Kenobi) has one of the all time greatest lines in the first Star Wars. He, Luke, C3PO and R2D2 are standing on a hill above Mos Eisley, where they first meet Han Solo. Kenobi says aloud to the group, "Mos Eisley spaceport...you will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. We must be cautious." I swear I heard somebody say this when I was passing through Acworth once....or was it Jonesboro?

Sorry for the digression. Anyhow, I got older and more conscious about my surroundings. I watched too much TV, logged on to Prodigy (remember Prodigy? 37 seconds to connect. Woohooo.) and learned too much about the personal lives of the players. Heroes retired. Steroids. Lockouts and strikes. Contract disputes. Voila....I was done. It was not a one day decision where I just decided to stop caring, it just sort of faded away, like the graduation rates from my high school. The information age completely annihilated my interest in professional sports. Sounds oxymoronic, right? Wrong. Ignorance is bliss when it comes to other's lives. Of this, I am certain.

Do I really need to know that Jordan gambled on golf? Or the fact that Mickey Mantle drank constantly, or Jerry Rice said a cuss word in an interview three years ago? Hell no. I don't care. Do we need to be inundated with talking heads discussing everything from T.O.'s newest "hey, look at me!" antics to Ozzie Guillen's latest tirade? No. It does not matter. Derek Jeter may be a womanizer, or not. He may drink a lot, carouse with multiple women and vote for Rick Perry. It had no bearing on his unbelievable putout of Jeremy Giambi in 2001. It had no bearing on his 3,000th hit. Nor did it effect the numerous World Series rings that now adorn his fingers.

I bought into all that nonsense, though. I even lost interest in the NBA for awhile. I stopped collecting cards, my posters came off the walls, my stat memorizations ended. Jordan was gone. Nique was gone. Instead of seeing Allen Iverson the player, I saw "hey, there's the guy who hates practice, maybe beats his girlfriend sometimes and can't get along with his coaches." I didn't see the unbelievable ability. I didn't see the toughness, where he charged into the lane against bigger men and played hurt. I thought of all the talk shows, the breaking news stories and the internet fodder. Yeah, he may not be the best guy in the world. He may have domestic problems. But at the end of the day, I should have just enjoyed watching him and now he's gone.

I miss the old days. Where sports news was reported without the personal diatribes, the character flaws meaning more than home runs or touchdowns, and the words of non-competitors carrying more weight than the competitors. Going back to Mickey Mantle, when I was a kid, he was all my Dad ever talked about when it came to baseball. I believed the 1961 Yankees were the greatest baseball team ever. (I still do, but it's a dead heat with the '98 Yankees and the '27 Yankees, all things considered) Dad never mentioned the drinking, the carousing, and the self destructive behavior. It was known back then, but not reported, or at least not to the magnitude of today's media. People left them alone. Heck, Mickey used to walk to Yankee Stadium before games. If they got in a bar fight the night before, so what? If he hit three home runs to beat Cleveland, the Bronx was happy. He could go home and get cussed out by his wife later, it was of no concern to the Pinstriped fanbase. Obviously, the Mick did just fine in his career, as did many of those Yankee players, who were just as wild as he. If they existed now, they would be demonized and picked apart by everyone. (Don't read the newest Mantle book called "The Last Boy," it focuses on his personal life and his shortcomings much more than his baseball career)

So, I've decided to get in my DeLorean (aka my 1997 Ford Ranger from high school) get to 88 miles per hour and go back in time. Back when I did not know about the athletes, I just enjoyed their accomplishments. Like Sir Charles once said, "I am not a role model." He was crucified for this statement, but I could not agree more. He was a fallible man playing a kid's game for millions of dollars. He is not there to teach life lessons, he is there to win and make money (in no particular order, but Charles did plenty of both). I am there to witness these events, not to analyze his political beliefs and his rap sheet. I watched every NBA game I could this season. I watch the NFL and MLB again. I'm talking smack to my friend Vinny about the Red Sox choking away the wild card. Why? Because I care. Yankees vs. Red Sox is a bitter rivalry and a monumental disaster like that one cannot go unmentioned. I'm not focusing on the contract problems, who is whining about their pay, who got drunk in the 6th inning, nor am I listening to the talking heads issue their opinions about post game interviews and such. I'm getting behind my teams. I'm enjoying every touchdown, every dunk and every home run again.

I'm back where Shawn Kemp just has a high top fade and a 45 inch vertical. And it's so nice to be back.