Absenteeism

Dear readers

Sorry for the down time. As I’m sure you’re getting used to, it happens now and then. Especially when the sports news is slow.

That said, we’re in the midst of an unprecedented basketball scandal, an NFL star is being linked to a dog-fighting ring, and the biggest cheater in sport is about to break one of the most hallowed records in all of sport. And Sports With Steve is nowhere to be found? What gives?

Well, to be completely honest, I just can’t muster the energy to be outraged. Instead, I’m wallowing in apathy brought on by a complete and utter lack of surprise.

A middle-aged man gambling on sports? No news there. The fact it’s a professional official makes it a very grave situation for the National Basketball Association, but in more than 100 years of professional sport in North America, it’s just the fourth big-time gambling incident (and that’s allowing for the Janet Gretzky, Rick Tocchet thing to be considered big time). In any given European league or international soccer match, there’s likely to be more than four crooked players, coaches and officials on the pitch at any given time. And soccer’s popularity isn’t hurting because of it.

As for Mike Vick, awful as dog fighting is, it’s not quite on the same level as driving around with a trunk full of guns like Tank Johnson, being implicated and questioned in multiple shooting incidents like Pacman Jones, serving time for drug-related offenses like Jamal Lewis, or plotting and executing the murder of your pregnant girlfriend like Rae Carruth. I love dogs, and in no way do I intend to minimize the need to eradicate dog fighting, and the people responsible for it, but I think the number of players in the National Football League that are willing to minimize the value of human life is a bigger problem. And, for what it’s worth, the fact Vick was too stupid get out of the dog-fighting business after Jones and Johnson were served hefty suspensions tells me he deserves the season-long suspension I expect NFL commissioner Roger Goddell to hand down. His mandate is very clear: you wanna make millions to play football on Sundays? You’d better get it together off the field.

And Barry. Barry, Barry, Barry. A man who miraculously gained weight, and a highly-refined home-run stroke at age 36. We’re not even talking about whispers, secrets or innuendo. Since setting the single-season home run record in 2001, it’s been widely speculated, assumed, and flatly stated that Barry Bonds is a steroids user. Anabolic steroids are a controlled substance in the United States-- their use is illegal. In Major League Baseball, though, the lines have always been a little more blurred. Through Grand Jury investigations and countless hearings, we’re all pretty sure now that Bud Selig et al turned a blind eye to the fact Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa were undoubtedly using performance-enhancing drugs in the summer of 1998, when they sparked a renewed interest in baseball and saved the game from financial ruin while chasing Roger Maris’ home run record. So it’s pretty hard to be all that upset about it now. Major League Baseball made their bed…

To me, it’s a whole lot more upsetting that after all the work the Tour de France did to ensure a level playing field, the current leader was sent home from the race Wednesday for failing a drug test. It’s a whole lot more disappointing to me to see the Hamilton Tiger-Cats’ GM calling for the CFL to use American-born on-field officials in an effort to improve the product. Just so we’re clear, the Tiger-Cats are still 0-4 with all the American officials they can find.

But perhaps this sort of thing is the source of my negligence. Or this, this, or even this. I guess I’m saying real life is getting in the way, and I’m sorry I’ve not given these stories the attention they’ve deserved. But there’s a little more going on right now, and the importance of hitting a baseball wanes compared to these other things.

I’ll be down for most of the rest of the summer, but as we move toward the start of hockey season, I’ll get back into the swing of things. Enjoy the weather, I'll be here for you when the frost comes.