Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio??

So the ironman Brett Favre just gave everything he had in -4 degree weather, but alas it was not enough to best young Eli Manning's New York Giants. Since the Cowboys were eliminated last week, Favre was my one last grasp on this NFL football season. Honestly, when the Super Bowl rolls around in two weeks I will most likely watch kickoff, a few commercials and the post game coverage. I'll most likely be in the middle of my afternoon nap for the majority of the game. This feeling really brings up a question that I feel many others my age may be facing...can we identify with the sports world of today?

I grew up watching players like Danny White, the Celtics teams with McHale/Bird/Parrish and baseball players like Mr. October - Reggie Jackson- and devoted, yet non-flashy, heroes like Dennis Eckersley and Tony Gwynn.

I watched "60 Minutes" unfold the Roger Clemens drama last week and then watched Clemens' press conference the following day. While it doesn't matter to me whether Clemens did or didn't use steroids (I choose to believe he didn't), it kills me that he must drag himself through this proving ground of "guilty until proven innocent" world that is any allegation made in modern times. Because of these charges and Clemens lack of desire to have to fight, he's all but chosen not to return to major league baseball. Now, I've never recovered from the strike in the early 90's that killed the World Series and, should this ordeal be the cause of Clemens choosing not to return for another season I will NEVER ever watch MLB again. I'm not a big fan now, but I can stil embrace the players like Clemens, Biggio, Kenny Rogers and a few other antiques that have managed to last this long. Brett Favre, on the NFL front, fits this same mold. I find it harder and harder to follow NFL teams because of the constant trades, salary caps, cuts, releases and non-loyalty from owners and players. Favre is the last of a dying breed on this front, he's spent almost two decades in the league, and for almost all of those years he's spent on the Green Bay Packers. As I watched him throw that last interception tonight, I wondered if I was indeed done watching NFL football for a long while.

Indeed, we still have a few players who can manage to stay with one team for a very long time, but usually it's the near-franchise players (Strahan, Marvin Harrison, Roy Williams). What happened to the days not so long ago when I could name every player on any NFL team and they stayed there for years...Steve Tasker, Don Beebee, Jim Kelly, Andre Reed, Thurman Thomas, Carwell Gardner. There's six players from a mid-90's football team that never won a Super Bowl and never headlined shoe campaigns or made the headlines for point-shaving scandals or big time coke busts. Players now are rewarded for being non-team players and running PR campaigns in order to be high-profile and attract endorsements.

Maybe I'm just a dinosaur, but I thought these were team sports where guys realize they're part of a bigger picture. Even hitting in 72 out of 73 games (including his MLB record 56 game hit streak), Joltin' Joe never told his teammates to climb on his back and ride him to victory, he relied on them in the good and bad times to contribute. Where have you gone, Joe??