OK, dying industry.  Only Topps remains of the licensed manufacturers, so maybe we’re hopping on this boat kind of late.

But we always wanted to collect baseball cards, and we were inspired by running into a kid the other day who seems to have a college fund in a binder.  Joe Girardi rookie card! Curt Schilling rookie card!  Jerry Remy before he was a broadcaster!

And we started thinking.  The fun of baseball cards, indubitably, is the grab bag aspect: not knowing what you’re going to get, and knowing it could be anything.  And for a rookie collector, the process is probably easier than ever, with the myriad opportunities to acquire old cards on Ebay and similar internet-y haunts.

We went to a game the other day and bought a couple grabbag boxes…and ended up with a 1994 Trot Nixon card (it’s even all foil-y and shiny!) and a Josh Hamilton rookie card.

That’s pretty cool. Not to mention the new found ability to organize things obsessively and also to interest future small children in baseball.  (And these are DEFINITELY a few of our favorite things.)

Anyone have any good baseball card stories? Or, better yet, baseball cards?

Sorry.  We had to get our thoughts together, since for once we actually have some. (We know, right? Stop the presses.)  These thoughts of which we speak you’ll find under the jump if you We’re really glad Vick signed.  Unequivocally, without reservation.

What he did was disgusting and cruel.  The pain those animals were in is awful to think about and justifiably angered just about anyone with a heart.  And then, he went to prison.  He served his time, did a ton of community service hours to which he was sentenced (and which he continues to do), and seemed to be attempting to understand what was wrong with the culture of the “sport” (which we put in the most sarcastic or generous quotationmarks possible) he had been engaged in.

There are those who say that playing professional sports is a privilidge that should be reserved for those who lead blameless or mostly-blameless lives, who are worthy of being role-models.  But taking responsibility for your actions, as we discussed yesterday with Josh Hamilton? That’s worth modeling and so is taking punishment that is deserved.

So is giving someone who has paid their debt to society another chance.

What he did was gross.  But he doesn’t deserve to be out of the game he clearly loves forever.  He deserves to be out long enough to hurt, sure.  That’s the penalty the commissioner and the judge both imposed.  So once he’s served his time, we’re glad he’s getting a shot.

She speaks movingly about the power of forgiveness and talks about those who say they just can’t forgive her husband his lapse.  That comment made us think about something we didn’t cover the other day, and that’s the pressure that being a role model may put on players in all sports.

The pressure doesn’t come so much from kids who want to be you when they grow up.  It comes from the parents who know that you’re the player that their kid looks up to.  Who have used you as a parenting tool: “I bet Josh Hamilton would have apologized to his sister!” Who now have to explain to their kid why the hero’s in the news with mud on his face.

Being a role model is a heady thing, but a hard one.  And the added pressure is a force to be reckoned with.  But a player who makes a mistake and then owns up to it, who struggles, who is flawed but works to overcome, is the kind of role model we want our children to have.  Hamilton is forgivable, even to those parents, because of how well he takes responsibility and how he keeps trying, day by day.

That’s a lesson all of us could stand to have modeled again, yes?

Right now, what UPH is thinking about is other drugs in sports, and the effect that the steroid-permissive culture might have on them.  Now that we’ve told you what the post is going to be about, we guess you don’t have to click the jump, but if you want to, feel free to Josh Hamilton, whose struggles with alcohol and cocaine, among other drugs, almost derailed his promising career, admitted a few days ago that he fell off the wagon: not just one drink, in fact, but a whole bender.  And yes, we know that for former addicts one drink can be just as bad–we’re not claiming to be experts on alcoholism, so please don’t jump on us for that part.  You’ll miss our point, and if you’ve read this far, that would be sad.

Hamilton made a drunk idiot out of himself with some girls, and then he called his support system–wife, manager, GM, teammates–and explained himself and asked for help, as he has so many times before.  The former number one draft pick went to rehab many times before it stuck, but stuck it has, and he is brave and responsible for owning up to his error and describing it in unflinching language.  This is a man who isn’t letting himself off the hook.

How hard is it to be Josh Hamilton? We don’t pretend we could possibly know, but it must be fairly hard.  Pro sports, looking only at bare facts, puts a lot of young guys together, often, in cities they don’t know, with tons of money, tons of new friends, and some serious time on their hands.  Also, half the time (if you play for a .500 team, that is), you’ve got something to celebrate, too.  Falling into drug or alcohol addiction in those circumstances makes as much sense as it can make in any.

Without getting too personal, let us say that UPH’s life has been touched by addiction: we can’t imagine the worry, the pain, and most staggeringly–to us at least–the trust it takes for a friend or family member of a player prone to addictive behaviors to let that player go out on the road.

But the worst part of this?  Certainly, there are players out there who will support others in sobriety, and who will act as sponsers, and do whatever else they can.  But in some ways, they may be fighting a losing battle, because whether or not we as fans want to face it, athletes take drugs.  They use substances–legal or not–to enhance performance.  While nobody’s equating a snort of coke with a shady supplement, the lines are blurry.  Some athletes use amphetimines.  So do some addicts.  How can anyone be sure the culture of the locker room and clubhouse isn’t colliding with the circumstances of an athlete’s free time to make addiction all the more likely?

We can’t.

And that’s the saddest part of the steroids thing.