When I had the good fortune to play on a state championship baseball team, my father gave me a valuable piece of advice.

Successful teams usually have a group of diehard fans and we had some junior high school students who were regulars at our games.

My father told me to always be nice to them because they will support you in bad times as well as good and they deserve to be treated with respect.

Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens are learning the hard way that Hall-of-Fame numbers don’t exclude you from persistent media scrutiny if you are perceived as a lowlife.

Their personal lives have been unraveled and it seems like there is a new allegation leveled at Clemens daily.

It began with them being accused of using steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs.

Then came their denials.

But they are just two of several stars linked to performance-enhancing drugs.

Rafael Palmeiro vehemently denied steroid use to a House subcommittee, and then, later in his career, he tested positive for them and was suspended for 10 days. He implicated teammate Miguel Tejada of injecting him with a vitamin B-12 shot that could have produced the positive test.

Mark McGwire refused to answer questions about his possible steroid use. The same with Sammy Sosa. The cloud of suspicion will probably cost them Hall-of-Fame bids.

But Palmeiro, McGwire and Sosa haven’t suffered the intense scrutiny of Bonds and Clemens because they have been perceived as decent human beings with flaws.

Bonds and Clemens are looked upon as arrogant bullies and everybody likes to see the arrogant bully put in his place.

Bonds tested positive for amphetamines and said he got them out of former University of Maine All-American Mark Sweeney’s locker. He later denied the allegation and apologized to Sweeney.

Clemens told the House sub-committee that his wife was injected with HGH.

Pointing accusing fingers at teammates or your spouse doesn’t help your image, either.

Bonds is a free agent and the all-time career home run leader could certainly help a number of teams with his power. But there haven’t been any takers.

Clemens could probably still help somebody, but he’s dealing with infidelity allegations.

The lesson to be learned here is a simple one.

We are all human and we all make mistakes.

But if we own up to them, treat people with respect and are kind and considerate, we will be forgiven.

We live in a forgiving society. Be humble and exhibit sportsmanship.

If you are an athlete, you will be judged by more than just your numbers. Handle yourself with class.

Overtime hockey incomparable

How many of you stayed up to watch the Dallas-San Jose four-overtime thriller in the NHL Western Conference playoffs Sunday night?

There is nothing in sports that compares to hockey overtimes, especially in the playoffs.

The goaltending was remarkable as the Stars’ Marty Turco made 61 saves in picking up the 2-1 win with his counterpart, Evgeni Nabokov, turning aside 53 shots.

Turco is no stranger to multiple overtimes. In 1995, when he was a freshman at the University of Michigan, Maine’s Dan Shermerhorn scored in the third overtime to beat him 4-3 in their Frozen Four semifinal in Providence.

At the time, it was the longest game in NCAA Tournament history.

lmahoney@bangordailynews.net

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