It's funny how a passing remark can prompt you to think about something that happened years ago, something you've thought about very little (if any at all) since.

Talking with Shane Berryhill about superheroes reminded me of a long-ago conversation I had with Steve Weeks when we were both working for Espy Publishing Company. We shared an office in which the publisher also kept a desk, and Gene frequently referred to Steve as a wordsmith. He was right. Steve had an endless vocabulary, and he could do things with words that went beyond clever and witty.

One morning in 1995, we were starting our day as we usually did, by reading The Atlanta Constitution. "It hasn't been a good week to be a superhero," Steve said, glancing up from his copy. Folding mine and placing it in the recycling box, I agreed.

Mickey Mantle had died the morning before, a few days after a heart attack had killed Jerry Garcia. The papers were full of both deaths, and, after reading the obits and tribute articles and discussing them with Steve (who recalled both celebrities' heydays), I found myself feeling oddly nostalgic for a time I wasn't even old enough to remember.

Deadheads took Garcia's passing particularly hard, 20,000 of them attending a memorial service for the bandleader in Golden Gate Park. In Atlanta, always a stop when the Dead were on tour, fans organized a vigil in Piedmont Park soon after they heard the news. As one fan put it, many who were too young to understand why their parents were so upset when Elvis died now knew what it was like to lose an idol: a larger-than-life figure who radiated a peaceful, mellow, gentle spirit and offered his fans a (supposed) idyllic sense of community even if they didn't know each other.

Mantle's tribute came at Yankee Stadium, where a crowd of 45,000 gave him a posthumous standing ovation. Flags waved at half-mast, and teary-eyed fans in ballparks across the country paid their respects to an iconic sports figure if there ever was one: the slugger who hit more home runs in World Series games than any other player, the base runner with the bum leg who could still run like lighting around the diamond, the hero of every kid on every sandlot in America.

They were two incredible talents who rose to the tops of their professions and became superheroes to millions. But what was behind the mask and cape (or in these cases, the tie-dyed t-shirt and Yankees uniform)?

"Here's a role model: Don't be like me," Mantle said shortly before liver cancer claimed his life. "God gave me a great body, and I didn't take care of it." Years of alcohol abuse finally caught up with him. He lived fast, and he lived hard.

So did Garcia. He died in a drug rehab center he'd checked into for treatment of his heroin addiction. All the marijuana, LSD, and free loving came with a price. It didn't help that he was a diabetic and slightly overweight. Fifty-three when he died, he looked at least 10 years older. It's a pity neither man made better choices.

Why are such people as Garcia and Mantle so revered and looked up to? It's the age-old appeal of the superhero. They could do things most of us can't and will never be able to do.

How many of us wouldn't love to play a guitar and sing clever songs for a living and have 20,000 people pay to listen to us every night? And what guy hasn't dreamed at least once about how neat it would be to knock a 500-foot home run out of the park? Appreciating and respecting someone's talent can very often be blinding, so that we only see what we want to see: a hero, someone to believe in.

To exist like that in the world's collective memory, to inspire such devoted followings is what so many people have lived for. And superheroes have even died for it.