E-Mail This Article to a Friend What do superstar athletes really owe the mere mortals? BY CHRISTOPHER YOUNG

A friend of mine recently described an encounter he had with Hall of Fame pitcher Tom Seaver. Like me, the pal had grown up in New York State, which means that if you were a baseball fan, you were a Yankees fan or a Mets fan — never both. My friend had been the latter, and if you were a Mets fan in the late ’60s or early ’70s, then you likely remember and appreciate the bedrock component of the team’s two World Series appearances, in 1969 and 1973: Seaver. In ’69, Seaver went 25-7, with 208 strikeouts and a 2.21 ERA en route to the Cy Young Award. In October, the seven-year-old expansion team stunned the Orioles and the baseball world by beating the Birds in five to capture the World Championship. Four years later, Seaver went 19-10 with a ridiculous 2.08 ERA, and the underdog team rode his back all the way to the seventh game of the Fall Classic before bowing to the multi-talented Oakland A’s. The June 1977 day when Seaver was traded to the Reds was one of the saddest of any Mets fan’s life. Still, Seaver pitched nine more seasons in the bigs (including a stint with the Red Sox in the pennant run of 1986) and became a first-ballot inductee to Cooperstown in 1992.

So one can imagine the thrill of such a fan getting the opportunity to meet Tom Terrific, as my friend did. He told Seaver how nice it was to meet him and how much he admired him growing up, but my friend’s wide-eyed idolatry was soon blitzkrieged when Seaver responded, "Why the fuck should I care about that?"

When we root for players on our favorite team, we feel like we know them, and when they don’t turn out to be all that we anticipated — or in some cases, are first-ballot SOBs instead — we are bound to be disappointed. Perhaps even crushed. We will never see such a player in the same way again, even though athletes are not obligated to be friendly (or even human, for that matter) to the masses. Obviously, for a guy like Seaver who still lives and works in the New York metropolitan area, running into starstruck fans happens so frequently that perhaps it does wear on him once in a while, and that’s likely true of any of today’s sports superstars. Not all legends handle it as Seaver did with my friend, but the spotlight continues to shine on these icons long after their careers have ended, and being recognized and approached on a regular basis can get taxing and provoke irritability.

So what is reasonable to expect of our sports heroes, during and after their professional lives? What do these athletes owe the people with whom they interact on and off the field? What is the minimum standard of conduct and obligation?

As the fallout from Nomar’s trade to Chicago continues in Boston, Garciaparra’s off-the-field actions have taken center stage. It’s gotten mighty complicated, to be sure, but no one has ever suggested that Nomar didn’t give his all on the ball field. Oh, he drove some fans a little batty with his penchant for swinging on the first pitch — even after the opposing pitcher had walked the two previous batters on eight pitches — but most admired his aggressiveness. Garciaparra was never accused of failing to run out a grounder, pop, or fly ball, and playing hurt was a staple of his career here.

Outside of Fenway Park, he established the charitable Nomar 5 Foundation, was a hands-on presence at an annual baseball camp for area youngsters, and was incredibly generous with his time for pre-game autograph sessions. In short, he recognized that the fans ultimately paid his salary, and he felt that he owed them his top performance in return. No one can dispute that.

It was in his dealings with those folks who didn’t pay their way into the park — the media — that he became more standoffish. While quite a few writers around here had a neutral opinion of Nomar-in-the-clubhouse, a great many others found him to be very difficult, and requests through the team for individual interviews were rejected more often than not. The sole exception seems to be the Boston Globe’s Neil Swidey, who got Nomar to sit down for a four-hour interview in a chichi Newbury Street eatery. Swidey’s May 16 Globe Magazine cover story, "Being Nomar," featured remarkable insights and quotes from the usually private former Sox shortstop. Aside from that piece, though, Nomar’s true personality was tough to uncover because he refused to put it out there.

And why should he have had to? Just because Red Sox fans adored him, did that mean that he had to open his personal life to them? At what point does an athlete’s obligation end to those who indirectly pay his salary, and where does basic privacy begin? And what does Nomar, or any other superstar who gets paid to play a game, owe to the writers who crowd around his locker before and after every game?

Garciaparra, of course, is not the first to have a surly reputation among the media. Former Sox outfielder Jim Rice, for example, was often boorish to the writers, and many believe that his entrance to Cooperstown has been delayed or blocked altogether because of his refusal to be media-friendly. Just the opposite is true of former Boston first baseman Mo Vaughn, who was always quote-worthy. His willingness to speak his heart and mind and to take on controversy endeared him to the fandom and helped reveal his character.

The list goes on. Ted Williams, Bill Russell, Carl Yastrzemski, and, until this season, even Manny Ramirez and Pedro Martinez had little use for the local scribes. As a result, their personalities were judged solely on what they did in the sporting arena. When controversy arose, those players weren’t talking, and therefore their sides of the story went unrecorded. In that way, they remained enigmatic and isolated, as Nomar often was — maddening as it was to his legions of followers. Folks loved his play on the field, but they didn’t really feel they knew him.

And that, one presumes, was his right. Just because Vaughn and Antoine Walker and Kevin Millar and Tom Brady always have something to say when presented with a microphone, that doesn’t necessarily mean that being open and forthright is their duty to the Fourth Estate. It makes our job easier when they do, but given the abundance of lightning-rod topics in this town, it’s often risky business to give of yourself so unfailingly.

Being private and withdrawn is, of course, one thing, and being deceptive and mean-spirited is quite another. Sportswriters can’t afford to alienate a potential source in the locker room, so it’s rare to see an athlete’s off-field character flaws outlined in print. That’s a delicate line for the media to tread, because even though a local sports hero may be putting giving first-class on-field performances, knowing that the same athlete is a prima donna or a scumbag off the playing field makes it difficult to cover him impartially.

During his recent tenure in Boston, Nomar tended to withdraw, even sulk. He was rude at times. Fans never read about that side of him for the aforementioned reasons, and probably didn’t need to. Now that he is gone, the slings and arrows are airborne, and the idea that Garciaparra was actively deceptive has been floated by some — especially in relation to his pronouncements that he wanted to stay here long-term. Some also question the genesis of the heel injury that indirectly led to his being traded. The truth is known only to Nomar, but it’s likely that PR considerations and the risk of estranging himself from his backers forced him to feign interest in a long-term contract extension even after his Red Sox aspirations had faded.

What Nomar owed his fans was his best performance, or at least attempts at it. In that regard, the shortstop paid in full. Did he also owe the fandom his life as an open book, to be portrayed by the writers who follow the team? No, he didn’t. We would have liked to know more, but it wasn’t his nature, and it wasn’t our business.

But fans of pro sports also want to believe in their heroes and what they say, and the athletes do have an obligation at minimum to give an accurate rendering of themselves. There is no logical reason to be two-faced or rude to those who idolize them, nor to those who as part of their jobs merely write about them.

Our resident superstars didn’t ask to be put on a pedestal, but asking an athlete to remember common courtesy is not asking too much. Even Tom !#?$ Seaver should care about that.

"Sporting Eye" runs Mondays and Fridays at BostonPhoenix.com. Christopher Young can be reached at cyoung[a]phx.com