The 2009 baseball season is well underway. Nostalgic thoughts arise for baseball fans that grew up worshipping their sports heroes. They used to seem bigger than life to us and we wanted to be like them and play center field for one of our favorite teams. But were they all heroes, and will some become legendary for the wrong reasons? And will more false heroes emerge during the 2009 season?

Maybe we over worshipped when we were kids, and maybe today’s kids are worshipping even less now that the fans know the real scoop on some of these guys. Just recently Ricky Henderson and Jim Rice earned entry- deservedly- into the Hall of Fame, but Marc McGwire fell far short again ( 23% of the vote, needing 75%) in his third year of eligibility despite breaking Maris’ and Ruth’s season records (until Bonds surpassed him) and hitting a ton of homers over his career. As a matter of fact, McGwire has become the forerunner of future Hall of Fame rejects with super career stats because of suspected steroid use and associated cover ups and denials. Barry Bonds may yet be judged guilty of tax evasion and perjury; Roger Clemens as well; Palmiero, and Sosa too represent a whole generation of super stars suspected of cheating, and now Yankee Alex Rodriguez and slugger Manny Ramirez may have joined the mix. And all of this comes on top of the revelations and disappointments of the fallen once promising drug users Darryl Strawberry, Dwight Gooden and others like them. It gets worse if you include the false heroes/thugs from the NFL, the NBA, and boxing.

Professional athletes may be admired for their great skills and achievements. But they are human beings, and every one of us can be greater or lesser than any one of them as a person, and salary and wealth are irrelevant. What matters is the extent to which they or you have lived a life that makes a difference for the better to someone else’s life, to kids, to your community, or to society in general. What matters is living a life of integrity, decency and fair play, standing up for one’s beliefs, and putting oneself on the line by courageously standing up for your mistreated neighbors rather than standing idly by as cowards with hidden agendas bully them. What matters is character.

Integrity and Character are among the eligibility requirements for the Hall of Fame. And having tons of those qualities are what true heroes are made of, ballplayers or otherwise. Maybe the true heroes and superstars that kids should emulate are the knights in shining armor standing next to them at home, in school, in their communities, in our senior communities, and within themselves.

 Joe Morguess is a retired school psychologist and a free lance journalist, and played baseball for CCNY and the Baseball Federation’s NY Bullets.