A time when an athlete could canoodle with his stripper mistress without creating a media feeding frenzy. A time when the sports world wasn't quite so obsessed with whether or not the girls in the hot tub with the pro quarterback were of legal drinking age. A time when an athlete could grab a microphone and ask rhetorically about the culinary merits of his posterior without fear of global distribution.

There was a time when an athlete — if he so chose — could even disparage the Star-Spangled Banner without everyone having to know about it.

But those days are long gone. Where once reporters played cards on the train with the ballplayers and turned a blind eye to various indiscretions, now every citizen with a cell phone has been deputized as a reporter, press photographer or videographer. And many are not the least bit interested in preserving the dignity of the athlete.

While the country has been locked in a debate on the merits of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, athletes were finding their every move monitored and recorded by an increasingly obsessed public.

Can you imagine Babe Ruth in today's cell phone camera culture? We'd all be e-mailing the latest YouTube video of him throwing up out the window of his Lincoln Zephyr Continental.

Where once Grantland Rice painted pictures with words — "Outlined against a blue-gray October sky the Four Horsemen rode again" — now the pictures themselves, no matter how lurid, are being zapped to our iPhones. We no longer have to imagine what a blue-gray sky looks like (is it blue or gray?) or whether each individual Horseman stands for a different biblical Horseman (Go, Pestilence, go!). Now we just click on the URL and see Josh Howard or Matt Leinart or Shaquille O'Neal making jackasses out of themselves beneath skies of irrelevant hue.

But as I always say, there but for the grace of limited athletic ability go I. Could any of us stand up to the scrutiny of having our worst moments uploaded to that dastardly series of tubes you're using right now to read this?

I know I couldn't. Let's see, there was the time I botched a flaming shot of Bacardi 151 and ended up in the emergency room. Think that might have gotten a few hits if I were a starting quarterback in the NFL? Then there was the time I got a drink thrown in my face in a New York bar by a woman who claimed my liking Woody Allen movies was anti-Semitic. (I can't remember the sarcastic zinger that sent her over the edge, but in a perfect world it would have been a quote from a Woody Allen movie.) And there was the time I thought the perfect complement to being seriously overserved was a pinch of Skoal. That was not a pretty aftermath.

The point is, like many of you, I've had moments that made Jamal Anderson's TMZ video look like a mild buzz. But none of them, to my knowledge, can be uploaded.

Athletes today do not enjoy the luxury of semi-private public behavior. Whereas once everyone was thrilled that Mickey Mantle was in their watering hole, now there is always someone who sees an athlete in public and thinks, "Gee, I wonder if I can capture some humiliating images of that dude." (Sometimes, as Chris Cooley proved, an athlete doesn't even have to leave the house to have an idiot post embarrassing pictures of him.)

While Max McGee's legend is enhanced by the fact that he was hungover during his 7-catch, 138-yard, two-TD performance in Super Bowl I, he might not have played at all had Vince Lombardi awoken to a YouTube clip of McGee's curfew-breaking, two-stewardess performance from the night before.

Players like Mantle and McGee benefited from playing at a time when it was enough to just perform on game day. Athletes weren't expected to hone their craft and their bodies 365 days a year. But now any and all photos or video of an athlete tying one on is deemed irresponsible behavior.

Titan fans may have been just a little less charitable toward Vince Young during Week 1 because of those photos that surfaced during the offseason of a shirtless Young, looking very drunk in a bar.

Then there's Josh Howard.

Perhaps Howard is a Marcus Garvey disciple, a black separatist who hates America. And he decided to make this political proclamation into the cell phone of amateur rapper "Los." Or maybe Howard is an apolitical pot smoker and erratic jump shooter who was trying to sound tough or cool in front of a rapper no one has ever heard of.

Gauging from the e-mails Mark Cuban briefly posted on his blog, there are those judging Howard less than generously on this question.

But regarding the Star-Spangled Banner and black Americans' feelings about it, it's worth noting that it was written in 1814 during a war between a country (England) that had outlawed slavery in 1772 and a country (the United States) that would have to endure a civil war for outlawing it almost 50 years later. A black observer standing beside Francis Scott Key during the bombing of Fort McHenry may not have shared his rooting interest.

Maybe that's what Howard was getting at, but I doubt it. He was saying something into a phone that he never would have said into a bank of TV cameras, ignorant of the fact that they are now essentially one and the same.

If Howard wants to learn how to behave in the fishbowl — though it's probably too late to salvage his rep — he should watch Kobe Bryant. Yes, the same Kobe Bryant who once thought it'd be a wise decision to rip Lakers GM Mitch Kupchak and teammate Andrew Bynum to a bunch of fans with a camera phone in the parking lot of an Orange County shopping center.

But Bryant's gotten much smarter since then.

Kobe tells anyone who will listen that his gold medal means more to him than an NBA championship. He refused to be drawn into the latest chapter of his feud with Shaq, suddenly finding himself alone on the high road after the Diesel's pathetic rap. Kobe may be the Black Mamba on the court, but off it he has wisely become shrewdly vanilla.

All athletes in the fishbowl would do well to be that boring.

News » Athletes need to understand they're in a fishbowl 2008-09-26
Athletes need to understand they're in a fishbowl 2008-09-26
The closing of the curtain on the House that Ruth Built no doubt made some wistful for simpler times. It evoked an age when the fabled carousing of the Babe was merely legend, whispered folk tales among reporters, teammates and fans, unsubstantiated by video. Too candid camera Read more: Hench: Athletes and YouTube don't mix Athletes adjust to the 'new reality' No online privacy for these athletes Kahn: Cuban made matters worse Rosen: Howard showed his immaturity Video: Kobe rips Kupchak, Bynum in parking lot Shaq's freestyle attack on Kobe Howard disses the national anthem Pedro Martinez attends a cockfight