Barrel full of bad apples spoiling sports
Wednesday, August 1, 2007 7:52 AM PDT
By Rick Woodson, columnist
Printable version
E-mail this articleWhat a mess in pro sports.
Michael Vick indicted for dog fighting on his property. NBA referee Tim Donaghy charged with betting on games, even some he was calling. Barry Bonds being investigated for perjury, income tax evasion and who knows what else. The Tour de France, once cherished as the Tour de Lance, is tainted by bikers suspected of using performance-enhancing substances.
And several other pro athletes charged with a plethora of crimes, ranging from possession of illegal weapons to drugs to assault to stealing. About the only thing missing is murder, but the way things are going, that could be next.
One bad apple spoiling the whole barrel? It's more like a barrel full of them spoiling the few good ones that are left, assuming there are some.
Pro sports has never taken such a hit. A black eye? More like beaten to a pulp, a head-on collision with disgrace.
It hasn't been that long ago that established professional athletes, like established politicians, could get away with just about anything done behind closed doors. Emails and blogs and cell phones didn't exist, and access to their personal lives was limited. They could carouse and drink like a fish and nobody outside their family would know.
And if there were problems, paper shredders could take care of most of them.
It's a different world now. If Bonds yawns in the dugout, everybody in Japan knows it because it's all over the Internet. If Vick gets his jollies out of killing spiders in his basement, the world will know about it before his mother finds out. As for watching dogs kill each other anywhere, let alone on his own property, how stupid can one get?
Well, Donaghy can answer that one. An NBA ref betting on games he's officiating is taking his career out back and shooting it. OK, so maybe it's an illness, an addiction he can't overcome. But it's even dumber.
Those of us who have had the good fortune ---- or in some cases, misfortune ---- of being up close and personal with pro athletes have witnessed their metamorphosis. Not all of them change, mind you, but most of them do.
As rookies, they come into the league smiling. They are polite to members of the media. They autograph things for their fans. They are in awe of where they are, what they are doing and how much money they're making.
Then, things change. It's usually in about their third season in the fishbowl. That is, after they buy the mansion and a Lamborghini for every day of the week, and have women falling all over them and the media practically begging them for five minutes of their time. That's when "Boy, am I lucky to be here!" becomes "Boy, are they lucky I'm here!"
Throw in a poor performance here and there, the sports equivalent of salt on the wound, and their mood changes. They will go on national TV after hitting three home runs or rushing for 200 yards or scoring 50 points. But if they go 0-for-5 with three strikeouts, carry the ball 18 times for 23 yards or get shut down on the court, they are more likely to tell reporters where they can shove their microphones.
At some point, after they've been around a while, established themselves as a legitimate star and have so much money they have to hire someone to count it, they become convinced that they are invincible. They wake up one day and decide that the rules the rest of us have to live by don't apply to them.
Most human beings have the wherewithal to weigh their options before jumping off a cliff or playing Russian roulette with their careers and lives. Why the rich and famous so often blow the whole thing by not considering the consequences of shady behavior is beyond me.
The door is open for NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, NBA Commissioner David Stern and Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig to take giant steps to stop this mess: If they are guilty, don't throw the book at Vick, Donaghy and Bonds and all those other dumb jerks; throw the entire library at them.
Don't let them wiggle out of it, guys. Set an example: You break the rules, we break you. You give us a black eye and we'll flatten you.
The people who run the leagues need to have the courage to put an end to this stuff. They need to get so tough that a guy making $10 million a year will turn and run the other way if somebody even says, "Wanna go see some dog fights?" or "Want some cocaine?" or "Wanna buy this pistol?"
Anyway, all this reminded me: Thank God for professional golf!
Rick Woodson is a former sports editor of The Daily News. He can be reached at rwoodson@rochester.rr.com
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