The Dark Side of the Sporting World

As a younger man, sports was a mainstay of my existence. If I wasn't watching whatever game (depending on the season) was on one of the three channels on television, I found myself outside shooting hoops, tossing the football against my brother and other neighborhood chums or attempting to play baseball (by far the sport that I was the worst at!). I pored over the sports section of the paper, sometimes prior to perusing the world news section, and quoted statistics better than some of my schooling lessons. I also found several players that I regarded as bigger than life, a hero so to speak.

The players from the past were what made us all watch. I watched in awe that night in April 1973 that Hank Aaron turned an Al Dowling pitch into the Georgia night and became the all time home run king. At this time as well, Julius Erving and George Gervin amazed me with their athleticism and their conduct on and off the court. Walter Payton was at the start of a career that led him to the Football Hall of Fame, but he always competed with sportsmanship and class, even when his team was less than worthy of him. They carried themselves with honor on the field of play and seemed to carry themselves even higher away from it. They were the stars of the game at that time and became the legends of the sporting world upon their departure.

The last few months have been troubling for those of us who are sports fans. The advent of 24-hour news (and sports, thanks to ESPN), the prying eyes of other media and the general cynicism of fans in general has led up to what, for all practical purposes, has been the worst week in sports history. How, and when, did it come all to this?

What has to be the most revolting development in sports is the saga of Michael Vick, the quarterback of the Atlanta Falcons and one of the stars of the NFL. His indictment, and subsequent guilty plea, for a variety of federal felony charges related to dog fighting has exposed the hypocrisy of not only the NFL itself regarding player conduct but of some of its stars, current and past, as well. Vick has become the Hester Prynne of the league, forever to carry the Scarlet Letter that signifies shame and embarrassment (or it should if Vick had any sense of humility).

Baseball's Barry Bonds has now passed the legendary Aaron's home run record but he isn't in "the clear" (pun intended) either. The BALCO case, which has dragged on throughout this decade, has tainted the Giants slugger as to whether he achieved his great numbers through hard work or the shortcut of performance enhancing drugs. After all is said and done, he will be recognized for the achievement but not nearly the way Aaron was the night that he did it.

Finally comes the revelation that an NBA official was allegedly deeply involved in gambling on games--to the point that organized crime was a part of the mix--and possibly affected the outcome of games through his job. David Stern, potentially the most powerful of the commissioners of any of the professional sports leagues, seemed defeated and beaten by the disclosure, much like Mel Gibson's William Wallace after Robert the Bruce's defection from his cause in "Braveheart". Add in the thuggery that professional basketball has become and it all becomes a distasteful soup that fans have to digest nowadays.

Where did it all go wrong? Is it the multi-millions that professional sports generate now that has corrupted what are basically boys games played by grown men? Is it the degeneration of society that glorifies athletes to the point of allowing them carte blanc, disregarding the social and moral qualms of normal people? Is it an overzealous and scandal seeking media that thrills when heroes fall and institutions are exposed? Or is it a conglomeration of all of the above and much more, including the fans that allow it to happen?

Whichever it is, it is a sad time to be a sports fan. While there is much good in the world of sports that we don't hear about, there is an increasing ugliness that is creeping its way into every box score, every broadcast and every ball that is used in America. Can the fans weather the tumultuous storms or will we become like the little kid who questioned long ago Chicago White Sox star "Shoeless" Joe Jackson after the 1919 Black Sox scandal and, to paraphrase, "Say it ain't so, sports?"