Puskas: Traficant was our anti-hero

Jim Traficant was a lot of things in his 73 years. He was our sheriff, congressman, punchline and — more often than not — our biggest advocate.

Traficant was a hero to some and a villain to others. I always placed him somewhere in the middle, as the Mahoning Valley’s resident anti-hero.

Real or imagined, the anti-hero has always been a popular cultural figure. We often know we shouldn’t really root for him, but we simply can’t help ourselves because his charisma is just too strong.

Traficant had it to burn.

A friend still talks about pulling up to a red light on Route 224 one day years ago and looking over to see Jimbo staring back at him. They exchanged knowing nods before the light changed and they went their separate ways.

Bryan Cranston’s Walter White — the protagonist in “Breaking Bad” — might be the best recent fictional example of a man with such charisma.

Tony Soprano (“The Sopranos”), Dexter Morgan (“Dexter”) and Raymond “Red” Reddington (“The Blacklist”) are also among TV’s most memorable anti-heroes. James Gandolfini, Michael C. Hall and James Spader give those characters just the right combination of good and bad to keep us wanting more.

It wasn’t acting with Traficant. He was who he was and made no apologies for it.

Years before he entered politics, Traficant was a Cardinal Mooney football star and a University of Pittsburgh quarterback, which leads is to sports anti-heroes.

Has anyone ever fit the profile better than former Cleveland Indians slugger Albert Belle?

How many Indians fans uttered some variation of “Albert might be a jerk, but he’s OUR jerk.”

We were willing to forgive many of Belle’s trespasses because of the good things he did. Fifty homers and 50 doubles in 1995 — when Belle should have been the American League MVP — glossed over his boorish behavior.

But back to 1995. Really, MVP voters, Mo Vaughn?

As easy as it was for Indians fans to justify Belle’s antics because of his numbers, it was just as easy for baseball writers to stiff Belle — never a friend to reporters — for Boston’s Vaughn.

You know what they say about paybacks. Like Belle, Traficant probably was never going to get full credit for what he did right because of all he did wrong.

But that’s what being an anti-hero is all about.

I enjoyed following Traficant’s colorful career, from the Mahoning County sheriff who fought the law — and the mob — and won to the U.S. congressman who helped bring money and projects back to his district.

Traficant became the one man in Washington who could make me watch C-SPAN with his periodic rants.

I didn’t even mind that the so-called “Traficant’s Trench” — a proposed canal he argued would revitalize a dying steel industry in the Valley — would put my adopted hometown of Rock Creek under water.

And even when the feds finally got their man and sent Traficant to prison, there was still a vocal group of people who were willing to stand behind him because of the things he did that they felt mitigated his mistakes.

Traficant’s trespasses, they felt, were forgivable.

Perhaps now, in death, they truly are.

Write Vindicator Sports Editor Ed Puskas at epuskas@vindy.com and follow him on Twitter, @EdPuskas_Vindy.