We tend to remember the flaming crashes in life, which probably has something to do with the success of NASCAR. Since they stand out so starkly, we tend to look at a guy like Clarett and think of all the other ne’er-do-wells we’ve seen, concluding that the world is going to perdition in a fanny pack.

Reading the gory details of the arrest makes the brain flash up images of Darryl Strawberry and Dwight Gooden, of Roy Tarpley and Shawn Kemp. (Right before I wrote that sentence, I had a mental block on Kemp’s name, so I Googled “center nba marijuana fat.” Kemp was the first reference that came up. Are search engines cool, or what?) That made me think of drugs and Mark McGwire, another guy who’s moved near the top of the list, and Floyd Landis and Tim Montgomery and Rafael Palmiero.

Thinking of Rose brought up Hornung and Denny McLain, who went from 31 games won in one season to the slammer, another gambling casualty. Thinking of which of them deserved to be named the king of the losers brought Tyson to mind. If I spent another hour or so thinking about it, I’d be thinking of singers choking on their own vomit and comics dying of overdoses and writers falling into the bottle and priests molesting the altar boys until I’d be ready to slash my wrists, convinced that the human race is beyond redemption.

But we have to realize that guys like Clarett are as rare as guys like Tiger Woods and Walter Payton and Tiki Barber and Michael Jordan and Mattingly who do just about everything right. It makes sense. Great talent, after all, doesn’t help you if you don’t have at least a halfway decent head to go along with it.

And since it’s all a genetic craps shoot, most of us are going to end up somewhere in the middle, and a few are going to end up at the extremes. It’s only when someone is at the extreme high end in both talent and character that he or she becomes a shining beacon of everything that’s right.

Both ends of the spectrum are probably about even. For every knucklehead, there’s a sterling person, just as for every klutz who can’t walk and chew gum there’s a physical genius.

So go ahead and have fun cursing Clarett and all the bad apples if that’s what winds your clock. But you’d better spend your time realizing how special it is to have a Jason Varitek or Derek Jeter or David Ortiz to both wonder at and admire.

They’re different ends of the spectrum, both necessary for life and our appreciation of what we have. If we don’t get spectacular crashes, we can’t appreciate spectacular success.

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