But baseball bounced back in the next decade to reclaim its place as the national pastime: new heroes spirited competition and booming prosperity gave birth to dreams of expansion both within the major leagues and around the world.

I had my footballing heroes such as Bryan Robson and Diego Maradona but my dad was a rugby league star and he was my real hero. But the relationship with my mum was rocky and we saw things that would affect any youngster.

Many forms sizes and colors I think there are heroes in sports in life... It would be cliche to say my dad my granddad. I think I'm a fan of people who were brave my aunt my grandmother those are my heroes.

My dad's one of my biggest heroes. I also think Paul Newman's an inspiration. I know a lot of people say that but I love that he's a great role model and a humanitarian. I admire people who don't necessarily want to change the world but try to make it a better environment.

In short we need to recover the courage we celebrate in our heroes and in particular the courage to tolerate for the sake of a free society a level of risk we hardly ever imagined in the past.

For as long as this nation has known war we have embraced the heroes it has produced. Americans have rightfully noted the honor and nobility of courage under hostile fire and thanked those who perished in their defense.

When we read stories of heroes we identify with them. We take the journey with them. We see how the obstacles almost overcome them. We see how they grow as human beings or gain qualities or show great qualities of strength and courage and with them we grow in some small way.

Heroes to me are guys that sit in libraries. They absorb knowledge and then the risks they take are calculated on the basis of the courage it took to become replete with knowledge.

True courage is not the brutal force of vulgar heroes but the firm resolve of virtue and reason.

And in a world without heroes as the movie trailer voice-over guy might say the slightly awkward can be slightly cool.