Letters to the Editor
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Predictions
I am a Lakers fan who was not impressed by the Suns trading for Shaq. But even so, I was shocked by how many people were calling upon the Gods of Common Wisdom when declaring it a bad trade, this so soon after these same Gods were proved powerless by the New York Giants.
I am going to remember this Super Bowl for a long time. It's because of that game that when people ask me if the Lakers are going to win a championship, "Golly, I hope so" is the furthest I will go in offering a guarantee.
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Nice Quote King
Johnny Rotten would be pleased.
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The Psychology Of The Anti-Cheating Crusade
I'm not one to beat on a dead horse but this is a nerd problem.
Cheating is as American as apple pie. Been going on in all fields of endeavor since before we were America. It's why we can make some half-assed claim to be "the greatest country in the world."
But today sports has climbed the Everest of importance in society, all towards the wallet and psyche of the nerd. Who has never accomplished anything of note in the field, but who lives and dies with the players and the games and the rings.
Now the nerds, fan and media variety, have found a way to inject themselves and actually become a big part of it. At least in their own warped minds--the self-imposed judge and jury role. They will decide what to recognize and what to reject. What is real and what is not. What deserves awards and what does not. Who cheated and who didn't. Needless to say, with their pre-conceived prejudices stepping up front and center in their analysis, and with limited evidence and knowledge of the present discussions or overall situation, or of the past.
As I have said before--The steroid era is a moral outrage, asterisked by the nerds, but the old all white leagues are the stuff of legends.
It's a damn joke.
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Seems to me . . .
. . . the best way to get away from the sports coverage of cheating and lying and all of the reactions to it is to write about something else. I can't tell if it was ironic or not, but you even commit the precise crimes that you are railing against, drawing distinctions between certain types of cheating, moralizing,etc.
Instead of trying to be clever, make your statement with the content of this column and cover something else.
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My Predictions
Detroit takes it all.
Suns don't make WCF.
The Sports media will lavish the Lakers as the best team in the history of the nba before, during and after they are defeated in the playoffs.
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Is there nothing else going on?
Football's over. Baseball has yet to begin. Perhaps, then, you could talk about the sports--that's plural--that are in season? Yes, you spoke (briefly) of the NBA and Yao's foot, but you uttered not a peep about the NHL trade deadline.
D Holt was right--if you are sick of the scandals, stop talking about them. Write about something else.
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King Cheats Readers
Is cheating in sports more important than the war in Iraq? Say, for the sake of argument, that international armed conflict should rank above steroids in media coverage and analysis. Say, even, that in newspaper sports sections "cheating news" should be relegated to an inside page, below the fold. Can someone please explain why this stupid story won't go away? What is the basis of the national preoccupation with cheating in sports?! Is it that The People really want to hear more about player trophy wives showing off their tits at a party? (You say there are PHOTOS?)
I know there's been a lot of grousing about how the media is increasingly focused (tits) on superficial matters (tits) that can be conveyed quickly in a package (tits) that can be immediately understood (tits). But what's new about missing white girls (and their tits)? The people need the truth!
Give Wes his due: there's nothing really new about cheating in sports except the particular crooked methods in a given era. Now, it's steroids, then it was blood doping, amphetamines, you name it. Can anybody else remember a time of war when Congress appeared to be more concerned about catching jocks in lies than dealing with ongoing war? Now we face the spectre of Congress leaping into the strange and terrible Bill Belicheck situation or bringing criminal charges against Blowhard Clemens.
Hey, everybody, just put a stop to this foolishness now! Bringing the machinery of the government to bear on the question of whether Clemens is lying, when it's apparent to anybody with half a brain that he is, is yet more foolish expenditure of treasure and time. Say no to criminal proceedings!
But here's my humble suggestion for digging out of the national scourge of steroids in baseball. No criminal charges of any kind for past use of steroids or lying about such use while under oath; legal immunity for all steroid use and perjury about such use before now, today. (Mitchell seemed to be getting at something like this in his report, but there were photo ops to be had by the politicians, so the congressional committee had to slog on with the crucial duty of talking to jocks on national TV.) For that matter, let Marion Jones out of the slammer, today. The deal to players: no more lies, motherfuckers.
As applied to Clemens, who seems to be trying to ride out this shitstorm of bad publicity into a right wing cause celeb and from there, perhaps, a political career as an angry republican white guy in crazyass Texas, he can tell the truth about his steroid use and take his medicine, so to speak, or gear up for the final, inevitable media assault on the whole subject of HGH and breast enhancement. And: Congress can pay for DNA investigation of the alleged physical evidence (syringes, etc.) so Clemens can pay his lawyers more fortune to explain how his DNA could've shown up there. And: other untold, unimagined (by me) indignities too horrible to describe.
As for the equally weighty matter of how Yao's injury affects preseason NBA predictions, I would suggest a full review of these rankings, except this is a topic even more deadly that fantasy baseball, so let that one go.
King: way to bounce back with a good column after the beatin' you took from readers over your video. You might want to consider adding more cultural interests (tits) to your next production; stop cheating your readers!