Among the most persistent delusions is the myth of a bygone Golden Age, when human beings were superior to the sorry specimens around us. Classical literature is filled with tales of heroes and demigods whose exploits dwarfed those of puny contemporaries. Even Homer's "Iliad" tells of an earlier time when giants walked the Earth.

In politics, we're often told that the Founding Fathers lived lives of spotless Christian virtue, usually by people eager to turn the Constitution into a religious tract. Never mind that they kept slaves, accused each other of atheism and miscegenation (then an unspeakable sin) and fought duels. It helps to know a little history.

In popular culture, however, nothing rivals the sports page for misplaced hero worship, and no sport rivals baseball. Which is odd, because given baseball's long professional existence, its meticulous record-keeping, and its popularity among bookish types--I honestly don't know what I'd do without it--the game's real, as opposed to mythic, history is well-documented.

So why, I wonder, do we buy into the same old story almost every time the Baseball Hall of Fame inducts new "immortals" each summer? This year it was former Cubs second baseman Ryne "Ryno" Sandberg's turn to praise his own dedication to teamwork and his scorn for contemporary players who showboat, sulk and can't bunt.

Ryno was a wonderful player, but it was annoying hearing him praise his own modesty and work ethic while casting aspersions on unnamed others. In casting himself as Jack Armstrong, All-American Boy, he ended up sounding like Eddie Haskell, the smug phony on TV's "Leave it to Beaver." "In my day," Sandberg observed "if a guy came to spring training 20 pounds heavier than what he left, he was considered out of shape and was probably in trouble."

In his day? The guy's 45. He retired in 1997. His career overlapped many active or recently retired players he was assumed to be taking a slap at, such as Sammy Sosa--one of the few former teammates Sandberg didn't praise--Mark McGwire and Barry Bonds.

Everybody in Chicago was sick of Sammy, but the idea that today's ballplayers are less fit than those of the '80s and '90s is pretty funny. If Sandberg was hinting about steroids, he should have said so. Although since he and bad boy Jose Canseco--whose recent book preached the virtues of steroid "juicing," but changed his tune when Congress held televised hearings--are contemporaries, Sandberg may have wanted to keep it vague.

That's not an accusation; my guess is Ryno's too smart to risk his health. But he surely knows some stories.

Anyway, here's the The New Republic's John B. Judis on the political overtones of Sandberg's speech. He thinks baseball's an inherently "conservative" game: "Today, baseball and other pro sports are infected by the scourge of the celebrity superstar, whose spectacular feats ... transcend, and don't depend upon, his team. In baseball, these players specialize in hitting home runs; often, they are poor fielders and incapable of doing the little things that help their teams win, such as bunting a man into scoring position; they are enchanted by the television camera but indifferent to their teammates; they frequently change teams in search of more money; and some of them ... have taken steroids to enhance their ability to hit home runs, even though these drugs diminish their other skills and threaten their careers."

Oh, please. All sports are "conservative" in teaching realism; "liberal" in that Daddy's money can't help you hit a slider. What made Ryno an "immortal" was being a slick-fielding second baseman who hit well enough to play left field. If he'd played a "power position," his offensive numbers wouldn't have put him in the Hall of Fame.

Sluggers like Boston's Manny Ramirez don't bunt for the same reason Ted Williams didn't: because it'd be criminally stupid of a manager to ask them. "Teddy Ballgame" was no defensive whiz, either.

The first petulant superstar was Achilles, sulking in his tent outside Troy. In baseball, however, Babe Ruth was the most famous American of the 1920s, a far more significant figure than President Harding. Nor was Ruth known for his fitness regimen. Neither were Mickey Mantle or the stars of my childhood. Steroids or no steroids, today's players stay fitter because the money's so much better.

We all love to see baseball played right, and as an ex-Cub, Sandberg's certainly seen it played badly. (I say that as a Cubs/Red Sox fan.) But it's a complicated, difficult sport that takes all kinds and rewards all kinds: bombers and bunters, knuckleballers and flamethrowers, straight-arrows like Sandberg, and wretched misanthropes like Ty Cobb. Black, white, Dominicans, Venezuelans, Cubans, Koreans, Japanese--well, you get the idea.

The game is what matters. It's the Human Comedy on grass, and even politics can't spoil it.

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette columnist Gene Lyons is a national magazine award winner and co-author of "The Hunting of the President" (St. Martin's Press, 2000). You can e-mail Lyons at genelyons@sbcglobal.net.