Don't Let This Get Like Other Sports

Wednesday, February 25, 2004
by Scot H. Laney

Sweet smells from spring training at America's largest practical joke. People still pay good money to go see this phony product? It's true, Joltin' Joe DiMaggio has left and gone away. Replacing him in the lineup? Some corked-out 'roid head. That's what we get for our money. Guess that's what we deserve because we still pay.

And by the way, we're now a solid week in to our own little dash down the same road -- at least that's what we're left to fear. Can't get any information that would make me think different.

See, the thing is that it comes down to your product. More importantly, it comes down to whether the fans can believe in your product. Right now, I don't know what to think. I don't know what to think because I don't have the information to make an informed decision. The immensely positive aspects of our sport are being called in to question, and the people that can fill in the blanks are failing to do so.

We're talking about virtue.

Remember that concept? Used to be a lot easier to find than it is today. Near as I can tell, virtue is AWOL in most major sports. Drug use, pampering and pedestals, and just plain old money-grubbing stamped out virtue long ago. Wasn't even a tough fight. Only went about two rounds and virtue could no longer make the bell.

So we're left with the alternatives. The gangsters, wife abusers, drug users. The He Hates Me kind of athletes. He Hates Me? No, He Thinks You're an Idiot, He's Embarrassed By You, and He Wishes People Like You Would Go Away. But He Doesn't Hate You.

Except in our sport, right?

I need to know that. I need to know that I can believe in these anglers. I want to believe in these anglers. I want to believe in some of those apparently outdated character traits that our sport represents. Honesty. Integrity. Competition. Fairness.

Fairness to the angler if the rumor mill has it all wrong. Fairness to the fans, the sponsors and all the other anglers if the rumor mill has it all right.

Fairness to a 14-year-old kid who just sent me an email this week. Wants to be a professional angler someday.

Right now, what do I tell him?

I want to tell him the truth. I want to tell him, and I really do believe it, that this sport is on the up and up. I want to tell him that when there's a problem -- and there will be problems -- the sport can rise up and solve those issues and move forward, and all of that happens in the light of day. Right out where we all can see it.

I want to be able to tell this kid that.

One last thing.

Why don't we have a commission to handle this sort of thing? Why don't we have a commissioner who has one job and one job only, to guard the tenets that we all hold to be important?

Why are we allowing the tours to do that? Do you really think that should be part of what they bring to the table? Can they, by nature, be reasonably expected to do that? Or when something comes up, are the tours subject to stresses that we can't even imagine?

I ask you: If guarding the reputation of the sport is so important (and if you think it's not, you're really missing the boat here), then why don't we put in the peace of mind that a sanctioned commission would bring? The credibility that a sanctioned commission would bring to the sponsors, the fans, and the anglers?

Sorry if this makes you uncomfortable, but you know what? It makes me uncomfortable too.

But this is our reality. This is the hand that we've been given to play.

Will this be our finest hour? This an excellent opportunity to prove to the world that we are different. That there are not, and will not ever be, any coke and pot and booze and wife-beating and He Hates Me swept under the carpet in our sport.

Unfortunately that's not what the world is thinking right now.

The world thinks that there is, and that we're sweeping as fast as we can. If this guy didn't do something terrible, you need to publicly state that. If he did, you need to publicly tell us what you did about it.

If not, we may as well buy our opening-day tickets right away. It's all that we're left with.