Will baseball withstand cheaters?

With the Mitchell Report on Baseball’s steroid problem due out today, I’m wondering if game of baseball will actually change.

I have been a fan of Americas game since I was a kid. It was the first sport I was exposed to, it was the first sport that I could actually participate in. It is open to both boys and girls. What could be more fair and equal than that?

It is not unusual to drive through any community in the U.S. and see groups of kids playing baseball. In fact the game reaches around the world.

Growing up at a time when morals and ethics were actually being taught in the home, kids were very much against cheaters. If you didn’t play fair, you didn’t play.

As players begin emerging from the crowd as possible super stars of the game, the crowds cheer them on. Some of those players go on to break records. We cheer even louder and push them to attain even greater heights. This is what fans love about sports, stellar performances and breaking records and making the impossible plays. Every fan dreams of watching another human tear down a long standing record and we cheer them on as if they were heroes.

But fans have one overriding rule that does not need to be vocalized because we all grew up with it as the cornerstone for everything we know is right and just, you can not cheat.

When that record-breaking human is found to have used performance enhancing drugs to perform that impossible feat, fans lose respect for the player. The cheers become jeers. And a little more of our faith in humanity is torn down.

As we grow up the stakes become higher, there is major money involved from the sport they love and sponsor endorsements. There is constant pressure from the front office to perform beyond their means so their investment pays off, and there is constant pressure from the fans to become a sports legend. This last pressure is, I think, more in the players head because true fans just love to watch the strategy of the game being played out.

Athletes turn to performance enhancing drugs to help alleviate these mounting pressures. Fairness becomes no more than a childish thing to hold onto. The drive to be number one is a powerful force and ethics can be easily trampled into the dust of the playing field. The virtuous players get left behind, uncelebrated.

Before steroids came along, records were made and broken by muscle and sheer effort, the true essence of sport.

What is it about these guys today who feel they cannot reach those records on their own strength and ability? What drives them to shun this very basic rule of sports and subject themselves to the stigma of being a cheater?

Is the stigma of being a cheater being lessened by what we are repeatedly exposed to in the daily news? CEO’s cheat and steal from their own employees. Politicians cheat and lie to their own constituents. Religious leaders have forsaken moral values for their personal weaknesses. The poor and rich alike will steal and cheat to get ahead. Is it no surprise that the world of sports is riddled with these same low moral and ethical people?

The answers to these questions is the subject of psychology and I certainly am not equipped to address them. Although, I suspect it has a lot to do with ego and self image.

Just the fact that steroid use could lead to severe body damage such as liver cancer, steroid rage, testicular atrophy, torn tendons, osteoarthritis, just to name a few of the more serious side effects, shows the extent to which a person will go for fame.

Whatever their justification for using drugs, these cheaters should be banned from baseball forever and their records taken down. And not just baseball, there is no place for cheaters in any sport.

This game of baseball is still Americas game. I hope it can withstand this ‘black tide of cheaters’ and not lose more fans.

Killers go unpunished, society loses again

This falls under the category of eroding moral values and a weak judicial system that does nothing to curtail this type of behavior.

Michael Vick was suspended from NFL 'indefinitely' as a result of his ‘association’ with activities surrounding a dog fighting ring that he bought and paid for. This only goes so far (and not far enough) in the NFL’s efforts to make "a strong statement that conduct which tarnishes the good reputation of the NFL will not be tolerated," as spoken by Falcons owner Arthur Blank. But, Vick’s conduct obviously is not “incomprehensible and unacceptable" enough for Blank to completely cut Vick lose.

Vick is playing the legal system. And there are lawyers out there who are more than willing to facilitate his attempt to get off with as little punishment as possible.

This exemplifies how our legal system has become a ‘dog without a bite’. Please pardon the pun.

Just look at pictures of Vick surrounded by his lawyers. He is smug. He looks like he is challenging the world and he knows he will win. And why not? Our legal system has a long track record of letting people off with as lenient a punishment as they can.

Laws are written to prevent the type of behavior that Vick is accused of and has several witnesses to, but Federal prosecutors agreed to ask for the low end of the sentencing guidelines. Why?

Why is the court system always going for the ‘low-end’ of sentencing guidelines? Can they not convict Vick of the charges based on actual eyewitnesses who have already confessed to being a part of these charges?

Vick admitted to participating in a dogfighting ring. Vick also admitted that he and two co-conspirators killed dogs that did not fight well. This is not just ‘hear say’, the legal term for something that cannot be backed up with proof. He made these statements to members of the law enforcement community which makes them admissible in court. He should be charged with these crimes as well.

Vick said he would plead guilty to one count of "Conspiracy to Travel in Interstate Commerce in Aid of Unlawful Activities and to Sponsor a Dog in an Animal Fighting Venture" in a plea agreement filed at U.S. District Court in Richmond, Virginia. Why is he in control of what he will plead to? How is it that he is the one who decides what he will be punished for?

In an additional summary of facts, signed by Vick and filed with the agreement, Vick admitted buying pit bulls and the property used for training these dogs to fight, and to actually pitting these dogs against each other but the statement said he did not bet on the fights or receive any of the money won. He further states that gambling wins were generally split among co-conspirators Tony Taylor, Quanis Phillips and sometimes Purnell Peace.

Oh Please!! Vick expects us to believe he bought everything needed for dogfighting and for training dogs to fight but did not intend to benefit in any way from dogfighting. That he went through all of this expense for the sole benefit of his co-conspirators? What crap!! Nobody is going set up a betting situation and not take advantage of it in order to get his money back and then some.

You prosecutors cannot possibly be this blind. Everybody on the outside of this judicial system who is paying attention is laughing at you. The federal prosecutors, should be ashamed of themselves.

Vick also agreed that "collective efforts" by him and two others caused the deaths of at least six dogs. This is awfully 'big' of him to admit since he has witnesses that said he did exactly this.

Around April, Vick, Peace and Phillips tested some dogs in fighting sessions at Vick's property in Virginia, the statement said. "Peace, Phillips and Vick agreed to the killing of approximately 6-8 dogs that did not perform well in 'testing' sessions at 1915 Moonlight Road and all of those dogs were killed by various methods, including hanging and drowning.

The prosecutors are not going to convict Vick or any of the others for killing these dogs. They are not going to be punished for the brutal, callous ways in which these devious minds thought up to ‘punish’ these dogs for the ‘crime’ of not having the heart to fight.

You know what they say about people who torture and kill animals? They ‘graduate’ to killing and torturing humans. This is a proven fact. This is not just made up by me to write something more sensational about these sub-humans. These ‘men’ are going to be allowed to live amongst law-abiding citizens after admitting to killing for the pleasure of it. There was nothing ‘humane’ in the way these dogs were killed. These ‘men’ took pleasure in it.

What saddens me even further is that there are NFL ‘fans’ who will think Vick should be allowed to go unpunished just because he is an athlete. Maybe these prosecutors are among those misguided, blind fools.

So, yes, Vick is playing the legal system using low-life manipulative lawyers. He is also playing on the fact that athletes and entertainers always get special treatment above all others. This is an indictment against the legal system and this society in general.

Raising animals to kill each other is barbaric.

These people who raise animals have a debased ‘killer instinct’ that they feel has to be acted upon and they do this by supporting this barbaric treatment of animals.

These dogs were not domesticated so that they can provide entertainment for a few Neanderthal-type individuals who think it makes them feel macho.

Michael Vick and his friends made money on raising dogs to kill each other. He brutalized and killed these animals when it became apparent that his training did not reverse the centuries of domestication that society has bred into these animals.

Our legal system is absolutely justified in punishing anyone who resorts to this type of cruelty against what has become “man’s best friend”.

And now some NBA ‘star’ who defends this activity with the statement “We don’t say anything about people who shoot deers and shoot other animals” should get some education on hunting before opening his obviously, under-educated mouth.

First of all, the plural for deer is ‘deer’ not ‘deers’. Secondly, these are wild animals, they are not domesticated. (Look up the word domesticated in the dictionary so you can keep up.) Thirdly, if we did not hunt these animals they would overrun their natural habitat and become a threat to humans and livestock. And, yes, people are against raising animals for the purpose of shooting them. There are hunting clubs around the world that do exactly this and there are a lot of people who find it abhorrent. Oh, sorry, they find it very distasteful and mean.

So please, get up to speed on the morality of civilized society before you start showing your ignorance on the subject.

It is really sad that so many people look to athletes as their moral spokespersons. This society thinks that because a person can throw a ball, or run really fast, or take a beating on a sports field then that person automatically has some great intellect that we should all listen to.

Being a good athlete has always been a more desirable attribute than being educated. Beginning in high school, athletes have been given special consideration over education just to get them on the playing field. Then, when they get out into the real world people continue to look to them as if they are some special ‘guiding light’ for all of us follow. They are nothing more than entertainers. Pure and simple. They do not know what is best for society. They will never be listed among society’s greatest thinkers.

Given all of this, it is no wonder that the statement of an athlete would be spotlighted by the media as ‘important’ enough to tell the world.

Dog fighting is not a sport.

For our health, we raise animals for our nourishment. For our mental and psychological well-being, we raise animals as pets. For our entertainment, we raise animals in zoos so we can pay to see them in their ‘natural’ habitat and also to help preserve the species.

Dogs in particular have been a major part of our society as pets, protectors, and some would say friends.

Raising domesticated animals for the sole purpose of killing each other and then calling it a sport illustrates just how low and depraved these brutal and un-civilized people have become. It is truly reprehensible that these people are allowed to live amongst us, let alone be looked up to because they are athletes.