A recent TMZ report was not kind to Emmanuel Sanders as he progresses through a nasty divorce. Sanders has been accused of adultery, as well as lying to his team about skipping a practice in order to see the birth of his child. The accusation says he was not in fact celebrating the miracle of childbirth, but rather was skipping practice in order to “party in Houston.”
Yesterday, Will Petersen explored the possible on-field implications for Sanders and the Broncos, the results of which we won’t know for some time. How this situation impacts his public perception and his relationship with the media, which has been both outstanding and strained depending on the person asking the questions, will play out over months, not days or weeks, as well.
Whether you now have a lesser opinion of the standout wideout, or perhaps don’t care one bit about what an athlete does off the field, you still must take notice of how times have changed.
In the late ’50s and early ’60s the New York Yankees dominated sports. Yogi Berra, Mickey Mantle, Whitey Ford, Roger Maris, Bobby Richardson and the rest of those pinstripers played hard on the field on won gobs of championships. Now we also are aware, after the late-night stories have been told, that they played even harder off the field. Women, drinks, women and more women. The Yankees (and probably every other team in that era) enjoyed themselves to excess. It was a post-war era party, with plenty of “nothing to see here stories.” And who could blame them? The world for those athletes was like a new, pearl-white baseball, just ready to be played with. Young boys wanted to be on the Yankees; their fathers wanted to drink with the Yankees. They could do no wrong, whilst doing plenty.
The media in the early days of professional sports was not what it is now. There was no clickbait headlines or “got ya” journalism. It was a boy’s club, and the “fellas” looked after one another, so to speak. Writers and reporters traveled on the train with the team, stayed in the same hotel and even used the same locker rooms, rarely was an off the field story told. If you talked, you walked, and everyone wanted to be a part of the party. There was no reason to tell the bad about player or coach, and who would want to? You took care of each other’s legacy, and threw the empty bottles and truth out of the same window.
Most fans had zero idea of the late-night goings on by the Yankees and other stars, and according to the media they didn’t need to. All they knew was Mickey was perhaps the greatest switch-hitter of all time, and his poster hung proudly on the walls of the kids bedrooms. He was charismatic and flawless and there was no need to think otherwise.
Not that long ago the ’90s Cowboys were a true dynasty. The trio of Troy Aikman, Emmitt Smith and Michael Irvin won three Super Bowls and now all three are in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. America’s team was formidable, nay, outright dominant in the 1990s. They boasted the best running game in football, with a good air attack and a very underrated defense. They were on top of the world. Hats, shirts, posters; the Dallas Star was flying high everywhere. The Phrase “How ’bout dem’ Cowboys” was said ad nauseam. But off the field was another story. How ’bout dem’ Cowboys? well There was plenty about dem’ Cowboys, as many of their players were notorious for drugs, drinking and behavior that might be considered less than moral.
Around that same time the Chicago Bulls and Michael Jordan dominated the NBA. Now, years after the fact, we know the stories of Jordan’s gambling and late nights out on the town, but during this era in the NBA we knew nothing of those suspect moral (and possible league) violations. All we knew was we desperately wanted a pair of Air Jordans and we all wanted to “Be Like Mike.”
The ’90s Cowboys and Bulls where not all that long ago, and unless you were close to the happenings, you knew nothing of the antics. All you knew of was the performance on the field or court and the success of the teams and their perspective stars. There was no instant internet sports news, there was no breaking news coming over twitter and there was certainly no TMZ report on divorce proceedings. Cell phones didn’t text or receive news; they were the size of bricks and struggled at the one job they had, making calls. Now our phones update our fantasy scores, live feed games, and show us videos of our athletes out on the town, sometimes even live as it’s happening.
Times have changed. Not necessarily for the worse, as info is always a good thing. But not necessarily for better, because facts are often lost in the need to have it first, have it now.
I don’t know if we should or should not care about Emanuel Sanders and his personal life. I am not sure if we should even know about this until we hear his side of the story. Should we break him down, or beat him up verbally for allegedly lying to the team about missing a practice?
I don’t even know if it’s any of our business.
What I do know: Little boys will always look up to their heroes, and it was less complicated to be a father when everything wasn’t reported.
