No Joy in Hirpville

Watching Sports Center has become as depressing and upsetting as watching the news. It used to be that sports were a distraction from reality. The ballpark or arena was a place to cheer for larger than life personalities that did amazing things. We saw that the impossible was actually possible. Things sure done changed. The front page looks like a police blotter and a gossip column. The lead story is almost never about a game, and scores are an after thought.

The biggest stories in the big three should be much different. In baseball, it should be this fantastically symmetrical story. We have Barry Bonds, the son of a very good ball player who is also the Godson of perhaps the greatest player to ever play, Willie Mays, chasing down the most famous record in all of sports, 755, the home run record that belongs to Hank Aaron. In basketball, the story should be about the San Antonio Spurs winning their 4th championship in 9 years and their place in history. The main story in the NFL should be surrounding two great quarterbacks jockeying for their place among the all-time greats. With one we had a man defending the title that eluded him like an Oscar eluded Scoresese, and the other looking to recapture his crown.

Instead of stories about what actually takes place between the lines, we have scandal after scandal. And these aren’t run of the mill, someone was caught in a limo with a tranny and blow scandals. These aren’t scandals that just rip apart one athlete’s reputation, no these are much bigger. Two of the three scandals directly question the integrity of it all. In the NBA, the big scandal is a referee with a gambling problem that has been accused of point shaving. This referee just happens to have been working some of the biggest and ironical enough, most controversial games of the past season, including the post-season. Baseball has the well documented steroid scandal, which looks more like a witch hunt than a search for truth and justice. Bud Selig is acting like a jealous ex-boyfriend, determined to keep from moving forward with his life. Football has the one scandal that really doesn’t question the integrity of the game, just the humanity of one of its biggest stars. Michael Vick has been indicted for playing a major role in the underworld community of dog fighting. Did I mention that he allegedly killed dogs by electrocution, drowning, slamming against walls and the old reliable bullet to the brain?

(Also worth mentioning is a PGA vet has gone on record that steroids are now in golf, some of Nascar’s most popular drivers (these guys can make left turns all day long) have been caught with “illegal” cars and there was a wrestler that just took out himself and his family.)

All of this does takes our attention away from the very real possibility that we have five of the top 10 basketball players of all time, in various phases of their careers (Bryant, James, Wade, Shaq, Duncan). That we have the best baseball player (Bonds) and best pitcher of all-time (Clemens), nearing the ends of their careers, some of the brightest upcoming talents and another guy in his prime (Alex Rodriguez) who may end up as the best ever. Manning and Brady are in the mix for best quarterback ever, perhaps the best running back ever (Tomlinson) and one of the greatest coaches (Belichick) at the helm of an NFL dynasty.

So what does that leave for the kids, or any of us, to cheer for? I don’t believe, for a second, that any of these are isolated incidents. I think steroids are imbedded in every sport, and try as I might, I can’t believe that only one referee, umpire or player has used his influence to impact the outcome of a game to his own benefit. And I’m scared to find out how many of our “heroes” pass the time by placing bets on dogs killing each other.

It wasn’t like sports were scandal free when I was growing up. But most of the time they were stories of individuals that could win on the field but could never defeat their own demons. The papers said it was drugs, but it was really an internal battle more fierce than anything we saw between the lines. They’d come back, fail again and maybe get clean for good. Sometime’s they went to prison, but these events also made them human. They weren’t just a jersey with a name and stats any more. But now we have to question the validity of every game and every play. There may have been a slice of innocence left in sports when I was a kid, but that slice is long gone.

The story I’m waiting on now is, a big name athlete is caught using steroids. Turns out he was doing so to make more money so he can gamble on dog fights. His gambling spirals out of control and the mob gets involved, and soon he is throwing games. Oh, this is all revealed during his rape trial.