Sports - A New High In Lows

I've long thought professional athletes get more breaks than they should when it comes to breaking the law.  It pleases me when someone like Aaron Hernandez, a self styled prima donna of professional football, pushes the envelope once too often and has found himself divorced from his team and facing murder charges.  Don't mistake pleased with happy.  It's nothing to be happy about.  But rather I am sad and concerned.

How many others do we read about who are in trouble with the law or their sport for drug abuse, spousal abuse and just plain thuggery.  Their egos tell them they are exempt from rules.  Fortunately the teams and the law in this country are cracking down.  Fortunately for the young men if they're able to mature and get their lives together before it's too late.  In the case of Mr. Hernandez, I'm afraid it is too late.

What happens though, when those they entertain are bigger thugs then they themselves?  You have professional soccer where the fans are worse than the players.  More than worse.  They become savages.  That professional soccer hasn't caught on in this country is probably a blessing.  The hooliganism, property damage and sometimes even death caused by the fans in this country is for the moment confined to, of all things, victory celebrations. It could be worse.

We're all familiar with the picture of a baseball manager jaw to jaw with an umpire.  The manager  often gets expelled.  Or the football player kicked out of the game for unsportsmanlike behavior.  It could be worse.

Soccer has gone about as low as humans can go in the name of sport.  In Brazil a referee expelled a player and a fight ensued.  The referee, the one who is to keep the peace and control of the game, pulled a knife and stabbed the player who later died.

The fans were outraged, stormed the field and stoned the referee to death.  That not satisfying their blood lust, they proceeded to quarter his body, decapitate him, stick his head on a stake and place it in the middle of the field.

Oh, my, the unanswered questions.  Beginning with where were the authorities and ending with what type of people are associated with soccer from the fans to the referees!  The World Cup Soccer Championships are to be played in Brazil in 2014 and of course the Olympics are coming.  I don't completely blame Brazil however, I blame the culture of the sport - whatever it is! Culture seems to be an oxymoron.

This is one more indicator of the creeping violence in sport.  We tend to over look a lot of it when it's just a player, or just one celebration but a pattern is obvious and incidents are becoming more prevalent.

Will this horror be the point when the pendulum begins to swing back to what sports used to be about, is it stuck where it is or is it the beginning of redefining what sports and those involved are becoming?  Violent, cheaters, drug abusers, murderers. And that's just the fans!

Why is it the best examples of sport, like former Saints player Steve Gleason who is suffering from ALS are the ones ridiculed by clueless radio personalities while hooligans like Hernandez get swoons from admiring Facebook fans?

Is Sodom and Gomorrah in rerun?