Mickey Mantle died on August 13, 1995. The baseball icon who may have been the most gifted player of all time started teaching ethics lessons after his career had ended as he began belatedly learning them himself. Believing that he would die young (both his father and an uncle had perished of illness in their 40s), Mantle hurtled through his prime drunk, selfish, often mean, unfaithful to his wife and promiscuous, determined to live fast and leave a good-looking corpse. Then, as he said ruefully later, he found himself entering his 50s an alcoholic, breaking down physically, and ashamed of how he had treated fans, family and friends. Mantle resolved to make amends, but was stalled in his efforts by a failing liver, then embarrassed when his name popped up quickly at the top of the transplant waiting list. Doctors swore no special favors had been granted to the idol of millions, but nobody believed it. Cancer claimed Mickey almost immediately after he had his new liver. He had waited too long to realize the importance of caring about others.
The most touching story about Mantle in his latter years was one he told about meeting a stranger who explained to him passionately and with tears in his eyes how much “Number 7” had meant to him growing up. Mantle said that he teared up too, because for the first time in his life it hit him that he had an obligation to the people who loved and cared about him. He said he had always thought it was crazy that anyone would admire someone like him, and suddenly he understood that trying to live up the idealized image so many held of Mickey Mantle was a crucial part of his legacy, and what sports idols must do to keep ideals alive.
1. He needs to study Mickey Mantle...One of today’s most gifted young baseball stars, San Diego Padres phenom Fernando Tatis Jr., tested positive for Clostebol, a banned performance-enhancing substance. He’s been suspended for 80 games without pay, effective immediately. Tatis had already missed the first part of the season because of injuries he sustained in a motorcycle accident in the off-season, and this came after an injury-marred 2021 campaign. The Padres General Manager’s comments on the news might have been made about Mantle in his playing days:
“Over the course of the last six or seven months, I think (trust has) been something that we haven’t really been able to have. I think we’re hoping that from the off season to now, that there would be some maturity. And obviously with the news today, it’s more of a pattern and something we’ve got to dig a little bit more into. I’m sure he’s very disappointed, but at the end of the day, it’s one thing to say it. You have to start by showing it with your actions.”
It is not a promising sign that Tatis claims that he took the banned steroid accidentally.
2. This never occurred to me! U.S. District Judge Thomas Ludington held this week that it is unconstitutional for police in Saginaw, Michigan to chalk automobile tires in order to enforce parking violations. The judge held that the practice, while “relatively harmless,” is still a violation of the Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable searches. “No reasonable person would argue that something as trivial and transitory as chalk on a tire offends a reasonable expectation of privacy. But the Fourth Amendment protects more than those expectations that society deems reasonable,” Ludington said. Then he decreed that the city should pay out one dollar in damages to all 4,800 Saginaw drivers who had paid $15-$30 fines after being “chalked.” Continue reading →
Ethics Alarms 