Roid Rage

Admittedly professional sports have had a diminishing role in my life as more personal minutiae has emerged to reign supreme. I used to be a fanatic. I used to devote endless hours to my favorite sports teams: The Yankees, Knicks, Rangers, and Giants. I can remember the spring of 1994, when the Rangers and Knicks were in the Stanley Cup Finals and NBA Finals, respectively. I had an excuse to come home everyday from school, eat dinner, and watch a game at night in lieu of completing my homework. This was supposed to be "the year" for New York sports. After 54 years the Rangers would take what was rightfully theirs on the broad shoulders of Captain Mark Messier, and with Michael Jordan retired from the NBA to "pursue baseball," Patrick Ewing and the Knicks would no longer be deprived of their birthright. The Rangers went on to bask in glory, and after that season I never really cared about being fanatical again. I remember what did it for me, the reason I no longer cared about memorizing baseball statistics from the back of Topps baseball cards. It was a scene in a movie that put everything in perspective. Sports were entertainment, and more importantly business. That point was perfectly demonstrated in a Bronx Tale, when an impressionable youth describes his infatuation with Mickey Mantle to a local mob boss. The boss ignores the fact that the kid has a sports hero that plays center field and goes on to tell him that nobody cares! A powerful statement, Mickey Mantle didn't care that the boy's father was struggling to pay rent, so why should the boy care about Mickey Mantle? It's true. It's like finding out that Santa Claus doesn't exist, but it's a lesson that every sport-loving kid needs to embrace.

I'll occasionally consult Espn.com or watch SportsCenter to stay current, but I'm barely conversational with regards to sporting events. That being said, Spring Training is the talk of the sporting world and there has been no bigger scandal than A. Rod admitting to ingesting a banned substance. SURPRISE! I could personally care less about this, and hardly consider it a news story. Cheating has been a part of sport since, well, forever. Rodriguez cheated. Ok. So what? The entire MLB roster cheated. In fact, Bud Selig might as well have been handing out syringes to save the dying sport of baseball.

The outrage doesn't lie in the fact that this supreme athlete cheated and enhanced his god-given ability into the richest contract in sports. The outrage lies in the fact that he broke the law. A. Rod will unlikely see the inside of a prison cell, but he should because he broke the law. If you or I get caught on "the pot," we would be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Granted we don't make nearly the amount of money or posses the same celebrity as the third baseman, but we'd still be faced with the probability of prison. Blah blah blah - integrity of the game, etc. It disgusts me that a man can hit a baseball and is immune to the consequences that are associated with breaking the law in this country. Baseball and the perception of sport is broken, and has been for decades, going back as far as the Black Sox scandal of 1919 with "Shoeless Joe." It's no different than drinking and driving (over the limit). So the next time you get caught doing something illegal do not worry about going to jail because athletes like Michael Phelps, A. Rod, Roger Clemens, et. al. prove that jail isn't a viable option for those who break the law, or at least not for deities.