fictionandessays

I Hate Sports

     by Britt Michaels

    December 17, 2007

   (orig. publishing date)

Now, I really hate sports. Cream rises to the top; so does scum. While we have good role-model players in the public eye, we have too many scumbags in most major sports.  I am quickly losing interest in them. Reading the sports pages, including standings is going to be a thing of the past. The Mitchell Report on Baseball’s Steroid and Drug Use closes the door on sports for me.  Though the conclusions aren’t final, enough has surfaced to show drug use is rampant in baseball — which we already knew. (As well as in football and track and field.) Will the whipping posts come out for public flogging?  Hell, no. George Mitchell suggested players not be punished.  Hoping the commissioner, Bud Selig, will think and act differently.

I’m glad I’m not a child or teenager in today’s world.  When I was young, we had lots of sports heroes in baseball (and other sports).  Ted Williams, Stan ‘the Man’ Musial, Warren Spahn, Willie Mays, Micky Mantle, and many, many more.  Name one players of today for every five in the old days, having the  high-caliber of professionalism, on and off the field.  Most teens would say, ‘who cares’, and go back to their video games or read about squirrelly entertainers in the news du jour.

I haven’t checked “Wheaties” in a while, to see who they put on their boxes nowadays.  I would think they’d be hard pressed finding any of our current ‘heroes’ (including those in the entertainment field) not decked out in prison orange uniforms.

Many deny drug use allegations.  Some cowards, like Roger Clemens, use someone to speak for them. Some are assertive of their innocence. Then, when confronted with conclusive evidence of the allegations, they put on their pre-made hair shirt, and have a news conference. Also last week, Marion Jones, the darling of the 2000 Sydney Olympics, finally fessed up to her misdeeds, (while Johnny Ray’s “Cry Me a River” is wailing in the background).  So, athletes of both sexes are culprits.  They don’t cry. 

I’m sick of these bastards lying to us.  Especially to the children and young adults (teens).  How are they to become pillars of society, when supposedly adult role-models around them crumble to dust with drug use, killings, thievery, cheating, drunken driving habits ….. One cause: sports figures and entertainers make way too much money. I do not advocate a limit on their income. It just seems the more money most of  them make, the sleazier they become. That’s my observation.  Maybe it’s just me.

© 2007  by James M. Britvich  All Rights Reserved