Should we start looking for new heroes?

I played baseball for 6 consecutive years--mostly little league. I was flat out horrible at the sport, though. Memories of hitting RBIs or fielding grounders are lacking. In fact, my most poignant memories are bloopers:

• Having the third-base coach yell at me for missing a chance to score a run because I was staring at my cleats instead of watching the hitter
• Lying on the ground after missing an easy pop fly, then deciding to just remain on the ground for a while and act like I'd injured my shoulder
  

Indeed, I preferred chewing the rawhide off my glove in some abandoned corner of right field to manning some infield position. I think my coach invented the "rover" position just for me:

Coach: "Listen, I want you to go hold down that patch of weeds under the bleachers and watch for stray balls. If you get bored there, feel free to wander over to the ditch behind the field and catch garter snakes."

Me: "Sure coach, but will you send someone to the ditch to tell me when it's our turn to bat?"

Suffices to say that the Capri Suns at the end of each game is the only thing that kept me playing the sport. Unfortunately, that's not the only juice being served after baseball games these days, nor the only "juice" that keeps guys in the sport:

A new report says Alex Rodriguez tested positive for 'roids in 2003--the year he won the AL home run title and MVP award. So add A-Rod to the growing list of baseball stars that have been on the juice.

It makes me wonder how real their feats are. Would McGwire and Bonds have hit as many home runs if they weren't on the drug? Granted, no amount of steroids would have made me a successful ball player--a foundation of basic talent is certainly necessary--but I have to wonder how good these tainted athletes really are.

And then we've got the recent Michael Phelps drama. The only thing we're used to seeing him smoke is the competition, and I don't recall Mary Jane being the name of one of those guys on the French swim team.

In America we love our heroes. We want them to climb out of the gutter and into success, but we want them to be squeaky clean in doing so. Are our standards too tight? It was F. Scott Fitzgerald who wrote "Show me a hero and I will write you a tragedy."

Knowing darn well that our sports heroes will make a mistake, maybe we shouldn't judge them so much by what they do wrong, but by how they respond to what they do wrong.