My Opinion (For What It's Worth)
What happened to all the tough guys?

By Johnie Nall

Ain’t been out to sling any darts lately. Ain’t tested my voice at karaoke. So, what am I supposed to use to command your attention this month?
How about some musings regarding what it was like when the world was a different place than it is today. How we seem to have drifted from a world of the most masculine and imposing sports image to the sports heroes of today who are oblivious to masculinity just as long as their underwear matches the color of their headgear in case they get injured and have to go to the hospital.
I remember growing up admiring people with names like Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, Brooks Robinson and Nolan Ryan. Good old American farm boys playing baseball with apple pie stuck to the corners of their mouths. Guys that were spiked with real steel cleats, sliding base runners, guys that stayed in the game with blood dripping from their injured parts.
These guys played every inning until the end of the ninth and the last batter had whiffed. Pitchers that pitched the entire game with no regard as to whether the batter was a leftie, a rightie or swung a fence post with his feet. So, close your eyes, take a sip of that cold beer and drift away with me to a game being played somewhere a long time ago.
...And here comes the throw from left field as the base runner bears down on home plate. Yogi is blocking the plate and hoping the ball arrives before the runner. WHAP! The ball hits his glove. SMASH! The runner hits Yogi and knocks him 20 feet into the backstop. The umpire checks the glove of Yogi and finds the ball there. “YER OUT!”
As Yogi is helped off the field in the bottom of the third inning, his body is facing East, but his face is looking West. OMG, is he going to survive this one? Does he go to the hospital or even the clubhouse? Hell no! The coach holds him by the shoulders while the trainer snaps his head back around to a reasonable facsimile of where it is supposed to be. Three outs and here comes Yogi, back behind the plate. The boys of summer, how I miss them.
Now lets fast forward to today’s game being played somewhere in America. Visquel steps out of the box and complains to the umpire that the sun is reflecting off the 100-carat earrings of the pitcher, Rhodes. The umpire looks on his palm pilot to find out if there is a rule that covers this. Hmm, maybe he better ask for some help, so he calls his staff together at the plate and asks if any one has a cell phone that doesn’t have roaming charges so he can make a call to headquarters.
Meanwhile Rhodes is requesting that someone check the green card of Omar and see if he is on the safe list and doesn’t have ties to a terrorist organization. Of course, the mention of green cards causes fleet disappearance acts from members of both teams. Where, oh where, have the boys of summer gone?
Maybe you are a football fan who is dismayed at the changing of the scene from when the guys wore leather helmets and had all-American names like, Mean Joe Green, Crazy legs Hirsch or Mr. Ed Elway. Remember Jack Lambert – the support rod in the steel curtain of Pittsburg? Can you imagine Jack at the field meeting before the game; “OK guys, remember if the quarterback slides feet first, you can’t hit him – yeah right!”
How about being across the line from William “Refrigerator” Perry; “Hey Willie, make it a light hit will ya? I just had a belly button ring put in today.” Can you see in your mind a vision of the dude with the long flowing locks of hair running past Lyle Alzado? Lyle may not have been the quickest guy on his feet, but grabbing a handful of hair that ends up being a handful of head would put the cutest smile on his face.
Maybe you aren’t a sports fan at all. Maybe you just enjoy sitting down in front of the TV with your lovely family and a hot plate spaghetti. Just as you take a heaping forkful of twirled noodles in red sauce, the lids are lifted off a dish of red worms, maggots and cow eyeballs in front of four, wide-eyed Fear Factor contestants. Then as the four nutcases begin chowing down and chasing it with a glass of blended Madagascar, hissing cockroaches and cow snot in an attempt to earn $5,000,000, your kid says, “Wow, that’s cool”. Whatever happened to Leave It To Beaver, the Fonz and the Playboy channel?
So, if you want any sort of life at all, you may as well get used to women boxing and women wrestlers that somehow manage to keep their tops on. And, wrestlers that hold an opponent over their head for 30 minutes with one hand on their crotch before they slam them to the mat that bounces like a bowl of jello. I still wonder though – when the wrestling matches are co-ed, why doesn’t Kane pick up Trish Straus and hold her the same way he holds a guy over his head. Hmm, I’m beginning to wonder if it’s all fake.
‘Til next time!