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"They don't make them like him anymore."
That was a commonly heard refrain last week when baseball great Ted Williams passed away. Partly, folks were referring to his prowess as arguably the best hitter in the history of the Big Leagues. Six batting titles, two triple crowns, last man to hit .400, Ted Williams was, and forever will be, the stuff legends are made of.
But it seems to me that people were speaking to a larger issue when they said that the mold that Ted Williams was formed in has been permanently broken. They were talking about his character.
Ted Williams lived life on his terms, and if you couldn't make sense of his actions, that was your problem.
He studied hitting a baseball the same way that Hasidic Rabbis study the Talmud. The greatest Boston Red Sox of all time knew the nuances of every pitcher, knew when the change-up pitch was coming before the guy who was throwing it did.
He also wasn't afraid to take stances that a lesser man would shy away from. After hitting his final homerun -- in his final at bat -- he refused to tip his hat to the adoring beantown crowd. Some never forgave him that transgression. Williams told a teammate, who asked why he wouldn't acknowledge the fans' cheers, "They booed me when I struck out, didn't they?"
When he was inducted into the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, he took the opportunity to blast baseball's power brokers for not recognizing the many great players of the old Negro Leagues by making them eligible for the Hall. The next year, the wall of racist resistance came crumbling down.
Williams also didn't hesitate to join the Marine Corps when World War II broke out, shaving five full seasons off of his playing career.
When you compare the actions of Ted Williams to those of today's athletes, it's not difficult to write off many of the modern superstars as unworthy of the adoration they are afforded.
Basketball player Allen Iverson beats his wife during an altercation and locks her out of the house completely naked. When she wisely flees for her safety, the Philadelphia Seventy-Sixer threateningly points his gun at two men whom he thinks know her whereabouts.
In the past two months alone, three Buffalo Bills have been arrested. The last, newly acquired Charlie Rogers, had to be subdued by police with pepper spray.
Kind of begs the question, what athlete can a starry-eyed 10-year-old look up to?
I've got one name for you -- Pat Tillman.
For the past four years, the 25-year-old Tillman has been the starting safety for the Arizona Cardinals of the National Football League. The NFL has offered him fortune and fame and the promise of many big paydays to come.
There's only one fly in the ointment -- Tillman is walking away from it all. You heard me right, he's turning his back on millions of dollars, before he's even hit what could be considered the peak of his career. The punch line is the reason why Tillman is hanging up his jockstrap for good -- he wants to become an Army Ranger.
It was the events of Sept. 11 that made Tillman decide that he needed to do more than give lip service to every American's duty to protect our freedom.
The Rangers are the elite special forces of the Army, and the process of becoming one is so grueling that only 35 percent of all candidates ever actually become Rangers.
I'm willing to bet that Pat Tillman will be among that 35 percent. An average training day for Ranger cadets lasts just under 20 hours -- that's four too few for Tillman's taste.
Pat's brother, Kevin -- a minor league baseball prospect -- also is going to Ranger camp, so it appears that the selfless gene runs throughout the Tillman family.
Pat Tillman has always excelled at whatever challenges he's undertaken.
In an era when only a small percentage of college athletes ever obtain their diplomas, Tillman graduated summa cum laude from Arizona State, and he did it in three years.
Two seasons ago, Tillman turned down a $9 million contract to join the Super Bowl Champion St. Louis Rams and instead re-signed with the Cardinals for less money.
"They believed in me by selecting me in the draft," was how Tillman described his reasoning for not taking the money and running off to the arches of St. Louis.
This September, Tillman's former Cardinal teammates will be called warriors for collecting millions of dollars for putting in three hours of work on a Sunday afternoon.
Tillman will be crawling through the dirt at Fort Benning while being berated by drill sergeants, for the whopping pay of $1,022 per month.
His training will prepare him to become a true warrior.
As he moves methodically toward his goal of earning the coveted black-and-gold Ranger Tab, you can be sure that Pat Tillman will have a smile on his face, and that somewhere Ted Williams will be smiling too.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | July 23 2002 |