It Had to End Like This

The news of the week seemed overwhelming for a guy still jet lagged from a week on an island.

Wayne Gretzky hanging up the skates? The Lakers giving Dennis Rodman the boot? Darryl Strawberry busted on solicitation and drug charges?

System error. Information overload. Please restart computer.

But once my senses cleared and my body adjusted to its proper time zone, it all made sense. In retrospect the events were all inevitable, newsworthy for their timing more than their shock value.

If any of them caught you by surprise, you just weren’t paying attention. People are who they are, what’s past is prologue and these three careers were just long marches to get to this point. It only seems fitting that Gretzky gets to take one last bow on Broadway, while Rodman’s negatives finally overwhelmed his positives and Strawberry took another good pitch life threw to him and hit it foul. How else was it supposed to happen? Their roads all led here; they just happened to reach their destinations at the same time.

Gretzky leaving the sports landscape is like the Mona Lisa being removed from the Louvre. But we got caught napping, and didn’t build this season into the send-off it should have been. Though we were well aware this could be it, we spent a little too much time denying and hoping for more, not quite enough lingering and savoring these last moments.

The signs were there, even if his words weren’t. We might have overlooked Gretzky’s nostalgia when he paid his final visits to the Great Western Forum and Toronto’s Maple Leaf Gardens because those buildings wouldn’t be in use next season even if he did come back. But we should have known when he started reminiscing at the All-Star game. For a guy who’d always have a spot in the NHL All-Star game as long as he was playing, he sure seemed to savor this MVP performance.

And we should have looked at the statistics and the standings, saw those nine goals and realized that--even in an injury-plagued year--Wayne Gretzky just doesn’t have single-digit goal seasons for teams that don’t make the playoffs. So it’s time, and he knows it. Those 61 NHL records and four Stanley Cups meant he would dictate how, when and where he left.

Gretzky (38), Rodman (38 next month) and Strawberry (37) are all basically the same age. Only Gretzky would be guaranteed a job in pro sports next season if he wanted one.

As for the other two, I’m not saying their careers are over, but if this were a televised game they’d be at the point where the announcers start naming the producers and directors.

Rodman and Strawberry have accumulated more baggage than a 747 cargo hold. While Gretzky could be valuable to someone based on goodwill and marketing alone, Rodman and Strawberry’s results have dipped below their hassle potential.

Rodman blew off practices and/or refused to go into games in Chicago and San Antonio. The Spurs dumped him in exchange for Will Perdue. The Bulls didn’t even try to get anything in return for him, the way they did in sign-and-trade deals with Scottie Pippen and Luc Longley. But as long as he kept rebounding, there was always someplace else for him to go. Now that opponents and sometimes even teammates are beating him to balls he used to get, his tolerance zone has evaporated.

The New York Yankees, having rescued Strawberry from his drug- and alcohol-induced baseball oblivion once before, gave him more than $2 million this year while he was recovering from colon cancer.

For a while the relationship worked for everyone involved. George Steinbrenner felt good vibes for his reclamation project and Strawberry gave the Yankees 24 home runs last season.

But this turned out to be yet another gift Strawberry couldn’t handle, like his early ascension to prominence with the Mets and his chance to be reunited with buddy Eric Davis in his hometown with the Dodgers. Instead of being remembered as the Mets’ all-time home run and RBI leader and a pivotal part of the 1986 championship team, or for leading the Dodgers in home runs in 1991, Strawberry evokes memories of the drug and alcohol abuse, the spousal abuse, the tax evasion.

He kept getting more chances because he still had the ability to hit those majestic home runs. What happens now that the bat speed has slowed?

Granted, any player’s skills would be diminished if he spent the off-season in chemotherapy. But the facts remain: If Strawberry still had it, he would have been with the big-league club last week instead of in Tampa, Fla., where police said he offered an undercover officer $50 for sex and was in possession of a small amount of cocaine.

We’ll see whether the charges hold up. Already it has meant that we saw more pictures of Strawberry walking out of the police station with an attorney. How many times have we seen footage of Strawberry coming and going with his legal representatives?

This really was a week when the pictures told a good deal of the story.

If only the “B roll” of Rodman could have focused on his rebounding. When he’s really working and dominating the boards, it’s a sight to behold. Greatness in just about any field is fun to watch. But with Rodman we had to see him performing an atomic drop on John Starks, yanking Karl Malone to the ground by his jersey, sitting on the bench and staring off into space. Too much junk and not enough basketball.

All the Gretzky tributes featured goal after goal, assist after assist. And that was it. No junk, no scandals, no dark periods.

Because hockey is so generous in crediting players with assists, I used to think too much was made over the fact Gretzky had more assists than any other NHL player had total points. Not anymore.

Now I realize the power of assists, after the way these three athletes gave more assistance than resistance to the courses fate laid out for them.

J.A. Adande can be reached at his e-mail address: [email protected]