Fortune And Glory, Kid

By now, unless you live on Mars, you’ve read Sports Illustrated’s exclusive about Alex Rodriguez allegedly testing positive for steroids in 2003, when he was a member of the Texas Rangers.

Ok. Let’s see if I can best express how I feel about this latest steroids “scandal” that’s “rocking the sports world.”

I. Don’t. Give. A. Shit.

Anyone who knows me will tell you I’m a pretty serious sports fan. Well, real sports at least (sorry, basketball and soccer). I also consider myself an educated sports fan. I know the ins and outs of the teams, players, and games that I follow. While I’m not a statistics nerd by any means, I like to think that I can hold my own in most any sports debate without resorting to “they suck” as my thesis. Hell, I sat next to a rabid Red Sox fan (and complete stranger) at a game in Yankee Stadium for 4 hours and managed to have a civil discussion the entire time, even though we agreed on absolutely nothing.

That is what interests me about sports. The drama, the emotion, the highs and the lows of rooting on your favorite team. Passing things down from Grandfather to Father to Son, and sharing family moments (one side of my family are Giants fans and the other are Eagles fans, so you can imagine how that goes). What I don’t care about is the personal lives of the players, and whatever it is that they may or may not be injecting into their asses.

For the most part, professional sports are played by grown men (and Curt Schilling) who are paid handsomely for their services. They have access to the best training, nutrition, and information about physical fitness that money can buy. It is their job to remain in peak condition. If they are stupid enough to take risks that endanger their health and potentially shorten their careers because they believe they need an edge, that is on them. If they are willing to break the rules of the sport or the law of the land, that is also on them. The major sports leagues have testing procedures and punishment policies in place to identify and discipline players that are caught.

This should be the end of the story.

Unfortunately, sports “journalists” won’t let it be that way. The real question is why? You would think that your average reporter is smart enough to understand the damage they do with the constant stories about doping, and drugs, and all of the other nonsense that they can’t seem to get enough of. I firmly believe that the average sports fan could care less. They want stories about their teams, who is playing well, who isn’t; which coach needs to be replaced, and does their team have a chance this year.

I’ll bet you that these “journalists” would counter with, “people are reading these stories in record numbers and tuning in to Sportscenter to watch on a consistent basis.” Of course they are when that’s all you report. Suppose I didn’t want to read/see A-Rod steroids stories today? Tough shit, this is what we’re serving. Doesn’t matter what you actually wanted, all you’re getting is cheeburger cheeburger cheeburger.

You know what my answer to all of this “wall to wall coverage” is? I turn it off. Is that what makes newspaper editors and television producers smile? Avid sports fans like me actively avoiding your programming? I would think that’s sort of the opposite of what you’re trying to accomplish.

So when will dipshits like Selena Roberts be happy? When they’ve destroyed the very games they make their livings covering? When they’ve completely disgusted every single person until they can’t be bothered with sports any longer? Enjoy covering the feline fashion show for the evening news. Are they trying to prove that they’re “hard-hitting journalists” with these stories? Get over yourself. If you want to be a journalist, go cover politics. There’s enough corruption there to last a lifetime.

I know what you’re potentially going to say: “but…but, it’s cheating.” Yup. It certainly is. So is stealing signs, videotaping the other teams practice, heisting playbooks, rubbing vaseline on the ball, so on and so forth. As long as they keep score, somebody is going to be trying to cheat. I get it. It doesn’t make it right, and I don’t condone it. I also don’t want to read about it over and over and over and over and over again.

Sports reporters, if you want to make a name for yourself, do something creative. Develop a voice, a personality. Engage your readers, viewers, and listeners. Invite them in to the discussion. But for the love of all that is holy, stop preaching to me about performance enhancing drugs in sports. I simply don’t care.

Play ball.