No one is sacred in sports anymore.
The late-80s trend of mega-deals continued last week when the Red Wings received Jimmy Carson and Kevin McClelland from Edmonton for former Michigan State star Joe Murphy, Petr Klima, Jeff Sharples and Adam Graves.
The deal, which helped Detroit by giving center Steve Yzerman another hot stick-handler in Carson, came on the heels of the Minnesota Vikings-Dallas Cowboys trade which make Hershel Walker a Nordic.
Which, of course, followed two large summer swaps in major league baseball - the Mark Langston deal (Seattle and Montreal) and the Frank Viola deal (New York Mets and Minnesota).
And this latest trade comes 15 months after Edmonton's Wayne Gretzky was sent packing to Los Angeles for a ton of cash and Carson ... who, of course, is no longer with the Oilers.
Got it so far? Good. I hope I'm not going too fast.
All of this leads me to one conclusion: No one is sacred in sports anymore.
It used to be this wasn't the case. Before this wave of 5-for-1's and 6-for-2's (which, by the way, actually started with the Indianapolis-Los Angeles rams Eric Dickerson deal several years ago), star players had pretty secure jobs.
No one ever contended that Al Kaline or Ernie Banks were for sale at the height of their careers.
No trade rumors ever circulated around the names of Sandy Koufax or Walter Payton.
No mondo-swaps afflicted the Brooklyn Dodgers, St. Louis Browns or Chicago Cardinals.
The truth is, nowadays even the top dog is trade bait.
Alan Trammell. Ryne Sandberg. Isiah Thomas, Magic Johnson. And on, and on, and on.
None are sacred. None are exempt.
And that, my friends, is what scares me about Sports In The 90s the most.
I long for the days when I could look at a team roster and pick 10 or 12 players and say, "Yeah, those guys will be here five years from now."
But I can't.
Look, for example, at the 1984 Tigers. A team of destiny, they were called.
Who remains?
Trammell. Lou Whitaker. Jack Morris. Willie/Guillermo Hernandez (even he's not totally there, hence the name change). Chet Lemon.
Five years, five players.
No one is sacred. At all.
This article originally appeared in The Marshall Chronicle.
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