Bob Padecky: Career in sports reaches finish line

Parting is such sweet sorrow, so said Juliet to Romeo.

Not for me.

Ain't no sorrow here, folks.

How could there be? When I look into the mirror all I do is see myself smiling when I think of the people I have gotten to know. Sarah Sumpter, John Goelz, J.T. Snow, Reed Carter, Brian Sabean, Arthur Webb, Art Howe, Lenny Wagner, Dusty Baker, Julia Stamps, Jill McCormick, Jerry Robinson, Jay Higgins, Chris Mullin, Jason Franci and, hey, I'm just getting warmed up.

For the first time since the spring of 1964, when I was a high school senior, I will not be working for a daily newspaper. I am retiring from The Press Democrat after 26 years and from the business after 50.

Terrific, people say. Now you get to do what you want to do. There's only one problem — I'm already doing it.

"I am offering you a job as a crime reporter at the Miami Herald," George Beebe told me when I was 21. George was the managing editor of the Herald and on a recruiting trip to the University of Florida. It was 1968. I was a senior.

I refused.

"What?" said George, looking more confused than insulted. "Why do you want to stay in sports? Nothing happens there. It's games. It's kids PLAYING."

I remember George emphasized "playing."

I so wish I could talk to George now. I'd talk to him about real courage I have seen in my life in sports.

I would tell him about Cassie Petersen, how she was born deaf, without a left ear, and yet was a star softball pitcher for Analy. George should have met St. Vincent's Jacalyn Murphy, who gets up early every day to undergo an hour's worth of treatment for her cystic fibrosis, so she can go to school and play basketball. George should have met Windsor's Xerxes Whitney. Xerxes is the high school's tennis coach, loved, no, adored by all because he refuses to carp, complain or otherwise draw sympathy to the fact he has cerebral palsy.

Back in the day when I covered pro sports exclusively, I thought courage was hanging in there when 6-foot-10 Randy Johnson released that missile fastball. I was wrong. That batter was paid to stand in there to take his hacks.

Mendocino football player Reed Carter, on the other hand, has the kind of courage I have not seen in the NFL, NBA or MLB. In a 13-month period that started when he was 12, Reed's mother died in a car accident, his brother spent six months in a body brace, and his father was diagnosed with cancer that required him to live apart from the family for five months. Reed has gone through hell and back and he didn't do it for money or fame or acclaim. He refused to submit because he wanted to make something of his life. And he has, stunningly.

Someone once asked me which teams I root for.

"I don't," I replied. "I root for people."

Look, I won't kid you. I hate the Yankees. But after 10 minutes speaking with Derek Jeter for the first time, I became a fan, a fan of his dignity, class and integrity. Subsequent multiple interviews confirmed that. I would never apologize for having Derek Jeter playing shortstop on my baseball team.

Rooting for a team doesn't feel nearly as interesting, intimate and rewarding for me as rooting for a person. Rooting for a team is like rooting for laundry, as Seinfeld once said. That no matter who is wearing the uniform, the team is unconditionally supported and cheered to hoarseness.

I felt like that. Once. Then I got to know Barry Bonds. From 2001-2002, Bonds had the two most productive, sensational seasons I'd ever seen in baseball. Disregarding any additives that he may or may not have ingested, injected, rubbed, licked, snorted or dissolved into lemonade, Bonds was the best baseball player I ever saw, after Willie Mays. Still, I couldn't wait for Bonds to leave the Giants. Neither could the Giants.

Sports are not simple. They are complicated. This is as good a time as any to bring up Cardinal Newman High School.

Way back I started a blog with the words "Cardinal Newman." That's all I wrote. Nothing else. The response was, to say, amusing. You're a Newman grad. You've always loved Newman. You're on their payroll, etc., etc., etc.

The animosity for Newman around here is thick, no question. However, I looked at Newman another way. Paul Cronin and Dennis Bruno can coach my kid any day in football. Tom Bonfigli could teach my son the pick-and-roll and I wouldn't regret it. I saw the Newman people the way they presented themselves to me.

I tend to approach people that way. That has served me well when dealing with people who like to whisper, to anonymously accuse, to wear jealousy like a badge. I have no such prejudice nor do I want to waste my time. I only have a very deep and abiding appreciation of where I live and who I have met here.