The Magical, Healing Properties of Winning

It shouldn't, but it does.

Just ask Michael Vick. Ask Kobe Bryant. Sometime in the next year, I suspect, ask Tiger Woods. And if he guides the Pittsburgh Steelers to another Super Bowl victory, you can ask Ben Roethlisberger, too.

We love our superstars, don't we? Big-time movie stars and musicians get free passes all the time when it comes to legal and moral issues, but it seems that, rather than holding them to higher standards, as we should, we collectively hold athletes up on even higher pedestals than their counterparts in the entertainment world.

I mean, sure, we generally turn a collective blind eye for actors and musical types, too. Just ask Mel Gibson. Kanye West. Any hip hop star who's been to jail and is still selling out concert venues on a regular basis.

But when it comes to athletes, America doesn't seem to hold grudges very long, if at all.

There are a couple of stipulations, though.

To be forgiven, the maligned athlete must a.) be a player you already supported, b.) play for a team you support or c.) possess the ability to help a team you support win games.

That's it. If any of those criteria are met, that athlete is on the road to receiving your forgiveness, if not your support.

Complete and utter forgiveness, across the board, is never possible, of course. The folks at PETA will try real hard to keep America from forgetting that Michael Vick is a dog-killer and all-around bad human being. And anyone who already hates the Philadelphia Eagles - and there are many who fit that description - now hate them even more ever since coach Andy Reid named Vick his starting quarterback. It'd be a different story if Vick were starting and winning games for their team, of course.

But Vick's saga underscores America's hypocritical love affair with sports; from inmate at the federal penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kansas, to starting NFL quarterback ... in just 11 months.

Don't try this at home, but what do you think the odds are that you and I could commit a crime that gets us tossed in the pen for 19 months and, less than a year after being released, get our old jobs back?

Somewhere in the neighborhood of zip and zilch, I'm guessing.

Of course, there are websites out there that list career opportunities for felons, but I've already checked, and a lot of the jobs you'd want to do aren't on those lists (NFL quarterback isn't formally identified as an option, either, but chances are pretty good that you're not qualified for that one, anyway).

Not to mention the fact that if your career application includes a check mark next to the box that says "committed a felony" and mine doesn't, I'm getting that job and you're not.

So, to recap: Average person does a stint in the federal pen, average person spends the rest of his or her life performing less-than-glamorous jobs, or struggling to find any employment whatsoever. Professional athlete, in his prime, does a stint in the federal pen, said athlete can be back collecting multi-million-dollar paychecks less than a year after his release.

Got that?

Good, because here's the kicker: it's all your fault. And mine. And everyone else's in our society who shells out too much money for game tickets, jerseys and memorabilia, and spends hours each week planted in front of the TV watching sporting events, helping networks rake in truck loads of advertising dollars that justify TV executives shelling out billions in contracts to leagues, and owners and, ultimately, athletes.

It's a vicious cycle. And the only thing that's ever going to stop it is some real accountability. The only thing that will stop it is if we stop watching, and paying, and supporting.

We won't. We've already proven that.

Major League Baseball players decided they weren't making enough money in 1994, so they went on strike. And they cancelled the World Series.

Let me repeat that: THEY CANCELLED THE WORLD SERIES.

Fans didn't take that one lying down, mind you. When MLB players returned to work for the 1995 season, baseball games around America were sparsely attended, and those fans who did show up mainly did so to display their displeasure over the previous season's work-stoppage. Average attendance that year was down about 20 percent from the previous, strike-shortened season.

But, then it began climbing, and within just a few years, attendance levels were more or less back where they had been, with tickets and memorabilia and ballpark hot dogs costing more than ever before. Not even the revelation of baseball's rampant steroids problem kept the fans away.

And the machine keeps on churning, and nothing changes.

What's the answer? Surely I'm not suggesting we begin boycotting sporting events, demanding some accountability from the very athletes we anoint as heroes and the very teams we gladly hand our hard-earned dollars each year, am I?

No. Because then we lose as much as anyone, don't we?

And therein lies the problem. Like a mechanic with my broken-down car, the businessmen who control athletics in America know they've got us in a compromised position, and they'll continue taking advantage.

They know that all cheaper sporting entertainment options, that aren't populated by morally corrupt athletes and owners, are inferior and insufficient, and just like that shady mechanic, they know we'll pay whatever price they set, so they set it high.

It's a win-win situation for America's athletic institution.

And as we fans have shown, winning is all we really care about ... isn't it?