European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - April 9, 1986, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 18 columns the stars and stripes wednesday. Aoril 9. 1986 Roe Model players Way off base by Russell Baker new York the trouble with baseball is that it believes its own advertising. How else arc we to explain the constant talk about role models whenever a baseball player is arrested somebody says the poor Devil s conduct is doubly reprehensible because a baseball player is a role Model and role models ought to be better than the rest of us. Baseball commissioner Peter Ueberroth talks this Way to justify acting As prosecutor jury and judge against ballplayers suspected of using narcotics. Judges who Are supposed to have better sense than the rest of us have been known to throw the Book at baseball players on ground that role models who go astray deserve More jail time than Normal rascals. Even sports writers who May be getting Sloppy now that red Smith is no longer around to dispel undue piety and nonsense occasionally write about the Ball Flavin still. I Orole Model. Do Young people nowadays really want to grow up to be like ballplayers surely not. Children being More Obser vant than adults will notice certain unattractive aspects of baseball life that escape the attention of judges sports writers and baseball commissioners. For example ballplayers spend half their working lives away from Home living out of suitcases in hotels where there is nothing to do but loaf around the lobby until it gets dark enough to play Ball. What child fancies spending half his life hanging around hotel lobbies it might seem interesting to judges and must have once seemed fascinating to embryonic sports writers since they now share the players travel agonies. Maybe the handful of kids who take ballplayers As role models is the same handful that grows up to be sports writers today s children have been educated by television. They know about temptations awaiting men who Are con stantly away from Home with nothing to do but loaf around hotel lobbies most of which have a bar close to the Coffee shop. Those temptations Don t Delight children. Children prefer to be Home All year round by a to set. Children being shrewd also notice that ballplayers Are constantly being uprooted from the Home where they could otherwise spend the Nice half of their working lives. One Day they Are sitting in a hotel lobby in Cleveland looking Forward to going Home to St. Louis for a few Days when somebody phones with news that they have been sold and ordered to move to Seattle by Friday. You can imagine How repugnant this must seem to children. Children Are conservative. They like to stay wherever they Are instead of having to master a new Cable to setup. Children Are also idealistic. Doing anything Dis Honora ble makes them suffer miserably and from watching baseball they know people involved in it will probably have to do dishonourable things sooner or later. Suppose for instance children really behaved in Accord with the role Model theory and fashioned their lives after a Fine baseball player Learned to hit the curve on the outside Corner acquired great agents who could make the Bosses pay them $2 million per summer for playing for the Home team and for being super role models for All the Hometown kids who came out to Root Root Root for the Home team. Suppose All that and then suppose the team owner says to the youngsters who have taken the role Model route to glory phooey to the Hometown kids i can get More dough by moving this team to a new Hometown with a bigger sap population to Root Root Root for the  a child pondering baseball can imagine that happening to a team on which he becomes a nationally famous role Model. That child with typical Youthful american perspicacity can readily see that he will be contractually obliged to join the owner s dishonourable abandonment of the Hometown kids in the squalid Pursuit of fatter profits. American children Are smart enough to know that now Adays. Many of them have been Hometown kids who have seen club owners abandon them for a new crop of saps. Children Are pained when forced to connive in Dis Honora ble behaviour. They Are not Likely to look to baseball for role models. In my own childhood i admired baseball players extravagantly particularly the insouciance with which they con stantly spit chewing tobacco. Most boys my age did but i can t think of a single one who took to a life of tobacco chewing. Instead we took up cigarettes to be like our real role models in the movies just As today s youngsters probably dream of the machine pistols and sweaty pectorals they see modelled by rambo and the Miami vice gang. C new York times the up to Date baseball card. How far to we want a5faras wha veto. I m a Rich Man. \ 7his or. Pupu a since the Pur Chase of human bbin6s is  sports my client has . You a finder  for or. Puke s re turn. What Powe have in Ftp Well that s difficult to say or. Pupuis. How can we measure me value of a person is it possible to set a Price for a human $10 million. Leave it. Pass. We re not talking Mother. 7eresa Here. \ today s crossword by Eugene Sheffer across 1 Brown s dog hero 4 engine part 7 Sharpen 8 " i Madam 10 temperate 11 wears. Away13 Peter Sellers film 16 still 17 taut 18 Wrath 19 English Sand Hill 20 sport group 21 word with stitch or Section 23 acute25 nautical word 26 attention getter 27 Aries 28 grinding tooth 30 fat farm 33 Audrey Hepburn film 36 walked firmly 37 tapestry Hist. 38 sea Duck 39 press 40 Norse god 41 elevator Cage Down 1 Butler of the future 2 Many Day 3 scolds 4 Small wagons 5 worship 6 created7 american inventor solution time 22 min. Yesterday s answer 8 Middle Law 9 profession 10 pig s digs 12 fragment14 Strong urges 15 surround 19 female Antelope 20 Highland Cap 21 talons 22 Distant 23 persian ruler 24 dissenting one 25 or. Carney 26 change 28 pensive 29 command 30 deep sleep 31 French bread 32 classified notices 34 Glass infusion 35 Avis 25 2t 33 36 22 38 19 34 40 17 28 14 29 11 26 23 24 37 39 41 20 18 12 15 35 30 31 32 4-9 Hubert go Home men the they get the More childish they become v we re through i thought y were just not t. Mean you always \ intellectual grown Man take a to whoopee Cushion to a wine and poetry 9ymposium at the citizen Center 9aip he was a fun Guy �19b6 King features Syndicate. Inc world Nihls reserved