As a child growing up near Pittsburgh, I can remember sitting in the right-field bleachers at Forbes Field, watching one of my heroes, Roberto Clemente, drift back to the fence and snag a long fly ball.

I can still hear the sound his cleats made as they dragged across the fines of the outfield warning track.

And I am guessing those of you my age might have experienced something similar, whether your hero was Willie Mays, Sandy Koufax, or Al Kaline.

Back in those golden days of sports, a sports hero pretty much spent their entire career in the city where they were first drafted.

As I read last weekend the breaking news of Matthew Stafford’s apparent upcoming departure from Detroit, my mind drifted back to Forbes Field and the days of Clemente and the Pirates.

I was sad — not so much for me, as, by now, I have come to accept the fact that sports no longer produces real heroes.

No, I was sad for all those who have grown up in Michigan, have followed Detroit sports — especially the Lions — and who once again have been disappointed with the news that another sports star has let us down.

The truth is, Detroit fans have a history of disappointment.

I remember the news of Barry Sanders’ retirement in 1999, and the impact it had on my two teenage sons at the time who questioned why a player in the prime of his life would just walk away from the game.

A year later, Grant Hill, after six years as a star with the Pistons, would leave the team as an unrestricted free agent.

For Detroit fans, the back-to-back blow was disheartening. Certainly, in my mind, it tarnished the image of sports stars as having superhero charisma.

If the disappointment ended there, it would be enough, but it happened again in 2016 with Calvin Johnson, and, of course, just days ago with Stafford. For fans of the D, it has been challenging at best to keep a positive perspective about it all.

This week, baseball legend “Hammerin'” Hank Aaron passed away.

Aaron, part of that golden era of sports, played 21 years first for the Milwaukee Braves and then the Atlanta Braves after the team moved south.

I couldn’t remember Aaron having played for any other team, but I forgot that, for the last two years of his career, Aaron was traded to where it all began in Milwaukee, and he finished his career playing for the Brewers.

Still, that move had a nostalgic twist to it that somehow made it seem OK and understandable.

It’s sad to me that sports rarely produces real heroes, anymore, heroes who stay in one place, where the town adopts them as their own. Sports today really is a business — both from the owners’ perspective, as well as the players’.

My 4-year-old granddaughter, Hannah, adopted Matthew Stafford as her favorite Detroit sports star. While I’m sure she will be disappointed later this summer to learn of his probable departure to another football team, I’m also quite sure she quickly will replace him with someone else.

Still, it would be nice if she, like me, had one person she could have rooted for throughout her youth.

Alas, that’s not what the sports world allows us to do anymore.