Our Heroes Last Forever

In this day and age the word " Hero " is a word that should be carefully used. Heroess can come in all shapes and sizes and can be found in all arenas of life. People's hero's are different for different people, they can be a teacher, a soldier, a father, mother, brother or sister, just to name a few. Every crisis we deal with as a Society always identifies new ones. One of our great escapes as a Society is sports, and there are hero's there as well. Where ever they are found hero's all fit the same definition. Simply put,  they go the extra mile, they make the great sacrifice for the greater good. Our hero's in sports are a reference point " for all that is good and can be again " ( Field of Dreams ), their deeds stay with us forever. Some athletes are embraced by everyone no matter who there home team is, Michael Jordan, Lou Gehrig, Jim Brown, Arnold Palmer, etc. Please add to that list Derek Jeter. No one is respected more by friend or foe than Derek Jeter. The biggest Sawx fan I know likes DJ. It's hard not to, no one sets a standard higher than Jeter on how to play the game, how to handle the press, how to respect your opponent, and how to carry yourself both professionally and personally. But his biggest and best character trait is his commitment to the greater good, his team, his organization, and to winning in general. He doesn't know the word I he only knows the word we. All throughout his career he has been known as someone who will sacrifice anything and do whatever it takes to win. That's why Derek Jeter is in his current situation, he played on a bad ankle he should have been healing for the future. There's no question he was putting his career at risk knowing his ankle at the very least was terribly fragile and at the very worst fractured, but he did what heroes always do, they sacrifice themselves for the greater good and unfortunately he's paying the price for that now. Jeter had an opportunity to possibly set all time records in baseball history for hits and other statistics, but that meant nothing to him, sacrificing to help his team win did. His Hall of Fame career speaks for itself, the sad thing is, his career will be shortened, but as Hero's so often do they save their best for last. Let's hope there is a last hurrah.  Here's to our hero's ...