High Class and No Class; Sports Edition

First, high class: Ernie Banks has died. If you lived in the Chicago area, even if you weren't a sports fan, you knew about Ernie Banks. He was a great ballplayer who played for one of the worst teams in the history of baseball. Banks was probably the best player never to play in a World Series. He loved the game.

"As I traveled around in baseball then and now, people would ask me, 'Is Ernie really like that? Is he really that happy all the time?'" said Billy Williams, a Hall of Fame outfielder and teammate of Banks from 1959 to 1972. "I always say, 'That was Ernie. He was that way every day.' He's the most positive guy I ever met. He loved playing the game. Maybe it came from playing in the Negro Leagues, where they had so much fun with the game. I just know that Ernie loved being at the ballpark. He was as genuine as they get."

Scott Simon's tribute is worth listening to.

And now, no class:

The [NFL] said evidence shows the [New England] Patriots used underinflated footballs during the first half of the AFC championship game Sunday night against the Indianapolis Colts.

The Patriots seem to have an allergy to playing clean. Cheating is apparently an institutional practice with them. Whatever edge they can take, fair or foul, clean or dirty, you can count on New England to grab it. The term "sportsmanship" means nothing to them.

Sports aren't war. A game isn't a small-unit battle. It's still a game and how you play it still matters. You can ask Mark McGuire or Barry Bonds about that, who will likely not be elected into the Baseball Hall of Fame until sometime after the heat death of the Universe.

Which is why there will be lots of column inches of praise and hours of remembrances on the sports channels for Mr. Cub. But when the Steroid-Sluggers or Coach Belicheat pass away, you'll see little of that.