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Section 1 Sports Can't Start Quick Enough
Enough is enough: Professionals running afoul of law
by Ray Gallagher
It has been a maddening couple of months across the professional sports landscape. And the sad thing is; we can't get enough of it. We salivate over the Michael Vick canine caper, most of us wishing mange on the Falcons QB while other ignorant kinfolk like Redksins RB Clinton Portis and NY Knicks guard Stephon Marbury practically condone Vick's disdainful actions by attempting to justify the electrocution of underachieving dogs or comparing it to deer hunting.
We've got an NBA referee in on the fix, led by a punk: Tim Donaghy, a bad seed and known gambler who allegedly rigged the NBA terrain and sent a sport reeling. We've got suspended NFLcornerback Pacman Jones, who had his Cadillac confiscated in a drug bust (April 2005), was charged with public intoxication (August 2005) prior to grabbing a Las Vegas stripper and slamming her face onto the stage and threatening to kill a security guard (February 2007). The icing on the cake came when a member of his posse shot three people outside the club.
We've got a former steroid abuser and shady cheater in San Fran's Barry Bonds breaking the most hallowed record in sports, leaving the gentlemanly Henry Aaron in the wake of his home run record. I'd like to think Babe Ruth would have clubbed Bonds, Tonya Harding-style, if he were alive today, but Aaron showed what a class act is supposed to behave like despite hypocritical Major League Baseball having turned a blind eye to Bonds and the notorious antics of many steroid-abusing Major Leaguers.
These guys, Vick, Jones and Donaghy, make Marv Albert look like Fat Albert. They make the Minnesota Vikings Yachtsmen look like the Mendelssohn Youth Choir Boys. They make Kobe Bryant look like Lane Bryant. They make Tonya Harding look like Warren G. Harding. But since we live for scandal, we can't get enough of it.
The lowest form of life, O.J. Simpson, took the cake back in 1994 when he literally got away with murder, but the likes of Donaghy, Jones, Bonds and Vick are the modern-day bad boys. Bonds, the least of the recent offenders, should still be chasing his godfather Willie Mays for fourth on the all-time home run list instead of approaching 800 bombs and holding the all-time HR record until ARod passes him. Bonds' faults are horrendous in judgment, but the entire league, scores of writers and throngs of fans flocked to see Bonds, who we figured was up to no good when he was crushing 73 home runs in 2001.
Donaghy should do at least 10 years behind bars, serving time with Vick, who needs at least a year in an orange jump suit; though he'll probably do Paris Hilton time or run the pen the way Mike Tyson did after a rape conviction in 1992.
Scandal in sports is nothing new, and our fascination with it is chilling and inexplicable. We love this stuff the way we love a Lindsay Lohan night on the town, the way we love a sickening display from Britney Spears, the way we love an off-hand Mel Gibson tirade.
We are almost as sick as they are for tuning in, for paying any attention at all, but we just can't help ourselves. We fill the airwaves, blog ceaselessly and run afoul of common sense. We voice our opinions about how deplorable these miscreants are, yet we can't get to the ballpark or tune in quick enough the next day.
Give me a Putnam Valley/Haldane football game or a Haldane volleyball match quickly because I need a fix of wholesome goodness.
For pictures of all the local action, visit www.yourdirectrays.com to view Section 1 sports galleries.
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