When Vicks attack

           After staging dog fights on his property and spending two years in a cage himself, Michael Vick has signed an NFL contract again; this time with the Philadelphia Eagles. Quite obviously, this game is played on the gridiron, and not the gridiron-y.

            If paradox ruled the realm of the pigskin, Vick would have been forced to sign with Cleveland and spend his suspended games amongst the vicious Dawg pound. Or, if fate held residence in North Carolina, Vick would have joined the Panthers and been subjected to feline abuse. Instead, Mike found a new home in the City of Brotherly Love. Of course they love their brothers; if you’re mean enough to bet on dogs fighting each other, you’re also smart enough to pelt Santa with snowballs during a failed halftime show. Instead of Vick serving further ironic justice, he moves from the Falcons to the Eagles, proving that this whole damn thing is for the birds.

            News and sports broadcasting companies spend most of their days worrying about the steroids in baseball or the injuries abound the NBA; we all but ignore the already violent and gruesome sport of hockey, but yet glorify the escapades of football heroes. The Pacman may visit any night club he pleases, endanger the lives of others, and go without “game pay” for weeks. Denver Broncos can be shot in parking lots, ex-Chargers can sell drugs to their teenage golf team, former Cowboys can be busted with vans full of cocaine, and a Brown can kill a man with his Bentley while driving drunk, but we worry about the stats of The Baseball Hall of Fame. Who’s harming who, and for what reasons?

            It’s the time of year to stay inside; the time to park yourself in an armchair and resign your weekends to drinking Oktoberfest brews, eating various meat, cheese, salsa, corn chips, chili, pizza, and wing combinations and watching football as though your knowledge of game action was the foundation of your very survival.
            I’ll assume that at least once during those 16-20 something weeks, the average football fan will drive home from a game viewed at a bar or friend’s house while inebriated. Not to say that baseball fans don’t get drunk, but when they do, they seem to mostly rely on mass transit and harm themselves by fighting or falling down while drunkenly trying on a trendy homemade t shirt outside the park. Their SUVs aren’t sitting in the parking lot half packed with 30 racks of Miller Lite and savage sampler packs consisting of sections of bovine and swine. Like their fans, the average baseball player typically harms themselves through idiotic acts such as steroid use. The average football player runs head first in to moving objects; throwing their lives and well being to the same wind that judges field goal attempts. They endanger not only themselves, but also everyone else on that level playing field on that given Sunday, or any other day they happen to feel invincible and enter the public domain with their egos dressed to kill.

            This isn’t an argument against football; I’m a fan of football, and of the game itself, but the behavior of those involved in the sport professionally needs to be viewed and discussed with a very straight face and not one painted in team colors. I’m concerned with the trend of missteps along the sidelines of right and wrong within the NFL. The league used to be filled with tough guys like Jack Lambert, Dick Butkus, Howie Long and the like. They were ferocious on the field, but didn’t endanger others with their behavior beyond the walls of the stadiums. Now the League is sprinkled, if not thinly layered with criminal corner backs, street thug safeties, wily wise guy wide receivers, miscreant middle linebackers, and quarterbacks with questionable moral qualifications.

            Baseball has had and currently contains some odd fellows, as well, don’t get me wrong. There were, and are, players that made or currently make bad decisions off the field, because they’re all humans, and everyone, yes, even me and you, have made or currently make mistakes and have done or are currently doing stupid things, just like NFL players. Billy Martin, Cory Lidle, Steve Olin, and many more endangered others in their enigmatic antics, while those like the late Ken Caminiti and current steroid laureate Jose Canseco purely lost the luster on their personal legacies.
            Perhaps baseball players, because they’re in a less violent sport, one where post concussion syndrome payouts aren’t part of your players’ pension plan, are mostly making mistakes that harm only themselves because they are only meant to put a hurting on an inanimate object travelling towards them at speeds near 100 miles per hour, as opposed to humans donning ineffective padding awaiting an impact. That’s not a blanket statement saying that all MLB members are free of any criminal activities, but rather one pointing out that there is, in this case, that a lesser of two evils exists.
            The stupidity that caused Manny, McGwire, Clemens and the like to use steroids is inexcusable, but unfortunately exists, to a degree, in every man. When that stupidity stews with severe levels of testosterone and seven point score swings, apparently, a human is justified in doing just about anything.

            There are issues in every major sport, from gender issues in track, to fights with the fans in the NBA, to steroid and drug use across the board. What we really need to stop and examine (during commercial breaks, after taking a piss or refreshing the bowl of salsa), is the severity of harm done by the athlete in each case. Pete Rose bet on some games, only harming himself, possesses the all time record for hits in a career, and still isn’t in the Hall of Fame. Some mistake. Did his betting kill anyone or cause anyone to find themselves in the line of gunfire? I doubt that highly.
            Point being, the NFL is filled with thugs. This season, while you’re participating in Coors Light sweepstakes for tickets and rooting for your local team, realize that your league is the most corrupt and dangerous of all professional sport organizations. Long live athletes living as role models, and long live money well spent on good, clean, honest entertainment. With the ever increasing cost of tickets, parking, food, etc. for NFL games, I could just easily spend the same money researching time travel so that I may journey back to Ancient Roman times and see convicted killers slaughtered by actual Lions (not ones that go 0-16) within the walls of the Coliseum.

            Please save the stupidity and violence to fumbles, interceptions, and plays worthy of Sports Center blooper reels. We, the innocent public, need not be struck down or embarrassed by your self serving ways. Above all else, despite all of your hard work, you are privileged to be where you are. Remember this forever on two, ready…BREAK!