Alright, I've been skirting these issues long enough, so it's time to address the biggest stories in sports for quite awhile. Today I'm going to talk about college recruiting practices, steroids in baseball, and the Todd Bertuzzi situation. I figured I'd give you all a quick heads up so that if it doesn't interest you, I won't waste your time.
First, college recruiting. Here's the thing; if the allegations of rape turn out to be true, then something is SERIOUSLY wrong. But if they turn out to be nothing more than allegations, then how many rules were really violated?
Last time I checked, it wasn't against any law to go to a strip club, as long as you're 18. And although the legal drinking age is 21, if any of these so-called "outraged" parents think their kids don't drink before their 21st birthday in college, they're sorely mistaken and very naive.
Everyone drinks in college unless they are morally against it or religiously against it. It's a very simple fact. The kids that choose to wait until their 21st birthday to try a sip of beer, well, odds are they weren't recruited for their basketball or football skills anyway.
College drinking is more or less overlooked and swept under the carpet with maybe a fine or a reprimand from the college or university. My freshman year, 22 kids (including me) got caught in the room next to mine with a total of 3 empty beer cans in the garbage. The people in the room got put on notice that one more offense would result in probation, and one more offense would result in suspension from housing. Not from school, just from housing. Both of the kids in that room moved off-campus the next year anyway; what the hell did they care?
Getting college recruits drunk is not a big deal. If the colleges are going to overlook drinking once the kid becomes a student, then why not extend it a few months to cover the recruiting phase.
Now, if that drinking leads to rape, that's a whole different story. Hiring a stripper to entertain the new recruits is not a crime. Hiring a stripper to "entertain" the new recruits probably is. Except in Vegas. Damn I wish I'd gone to UNLV.
But bringing women to parties specifically for the purpose of getting some pre-frosh running back laid is certainly over the line of what is right and what is wrong. Or, even worse, a coach or a school knowing about allegations and simply ignoring them as "boys will be boys" is completely wrong.
This is where colleges need to step up and alert outside authorities. Yes, it might give the school a black eye, but when a controversy breaks around it years later, it gives the school a concussion. Schools need to take allegations more seriously and report them to the proper authorities, and I don't mean the rent-a-cops who work for the school and take the same "boys will be boys" stance. It seems like it takes a death to really get outside officials involved with on-campus incidents.
Again, referring back to my freshman year, a girl at school alleged a rape in the same dorm I lived in. Her story was turned back against her because she admitted to being drunk while underage. The school never really looked for the alleged rapist, and she was expelled for violating the "substance abuse policy". She went to the real police and the rapist was caught within a week; she then was forced to sue the university to gain readmittance, three years later. I think she's finishing her degree this May.
Colleges really need to step up and take responsibility for things that happen within their walls. If students screw up, don't weigh the message that expelling them will send vs. the profit loss from reduced TV revenues at your home games! Investigate it, and DO THE RIGHT THING!
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Todd Bertuzzi is not a goon. He is not a thug, or an enforcer, or even an experienced fighter. He is a goal scorer who, in the mold of Mario Lemieux and Eric Lindros before him, happens to be very big and very strong.
But he crossed the line.
Bertuzzi's hit on Steve Moore late into a 9-2
I'm all for fighting in hockey, it's part of the game. Hockey and lacrosse are two of the most physical and violent sports in the world, with football close behind. The difference is that with hockey, fighting is allowed and encouraged. Remember the old saying "I went to a fight and a hockey game broke out"? Well it's true; fans don't go to NHL games because of the high-octane offenses and easily pronounceable names, they go to see players fly around the ice at 20 mph and slam into each other at full throttle.
But Todd Bertuzzi's blind sucker punch was out of line and blatantly pre-meditated. And his punishment of a suspension through the end of the playoffs is enough ONLY if Commissioner Bettman extends it into next season for at least another 20 games.
I don't blame Bertuzzi for the broken neck, although it only happened as a result of the punch. Steve Moore was out cold as soon as he was punched; he would have fallen to the ice on his own and could have snapped the two vertebrae without Bertuzzi landing on him. In fact, there's no way to know when his neck was broken; because he was unconscious, he can't tell us.
And I don't think Bertuzzi meant to pile on after the punch. He grabbed the back of
I really hope the NHL doesn't use this as an excuse to tone down the violence in its game. Hockey is really the last oasis for people who want to watch pure, unadulterated violence. Even boxing is rigged. If the NHL blows this chance to send a message to both the players and the fans, they'll probably lose what few people still follow the sport, myself included.
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Now, to steroids. Yes, there's really no doubt that steroids have infiltrated baseball, just like they infiltrated football and the Olympics. But each of the other sports has a solid testing system in place. In the NFL, test positive for ANYTHING on the banned list, lose 4 games. Twice, lose 8, three times, lose a season. In the Olympics, test positive once, lose any medals and get suspended for a long time. Do it twice, lifetime ban.
Major League Baseball has essentially told the fans "We know that players are doping. We know which ones it is. But it would violate their privacy to tell anyone else or to suspend them. And it would also violate their privacy to test randomly." Puh-leeze! I don't know about you, but at the last three jobs I've had I had to submit to a drug test upon hire and random testing throughout my employment. Simple as that. I couldn't argue "violation of privacy"; I'd be laughed right out the door!
And the worst part about the whole thing? MLB won't even test for most of the drugs that are considered ILLEGAL in
So if it's illegal, (which most steroids including the infamous THG are), then why can't these athletes be tested for it? Because the MLBPA is the most powerful union in the world, and they've still never lost a dispute. If I had tested positive for cocaine, for example, I'd have been fired and probably reported to the authorities for arrest.
It's not like we, the fans, are asking for a little black book of all the bad boys in baseball. We just want to have a little piece of mind that the game we love, the game we live for, isn't tainted beyond repair. Is that really too much to ask?
posted by Big D @ 12:00 AM
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