Speaking of Athletes; The New Political Party of the U.S.A.

So the banking industry needs more money...

If you want to read about dirty politics, follow the story of the National Hockey League Team, Phoenix Coyotes. It appears that the team is filing bankruptcy after failing for 13 years or so to make hockey work in the desert. No big surprise there; at least no surprise to anyone except the NHL big-wigs. But back to the bankruptcy, a man named Balsille, who developed the blackberry technology, has stepped in and offered to buy the team if he can move the team back to Canada, and most likely Winnipeg. This will be Balsille's second attempt at buying a team. But the NHL and Gary Bettman are blocking any move made by Balsille, again. It seems that while all money is good money to Bettman and the NHL Board of Governors, Balsille's currency somehow is not wanted. And there are reasons too numerous to list here. But back to the bankruptcy thing again; Phoenix's man, Moyes has filed for bankruptcy and balsille has offered to step in and take care of the creditors and purchase the team, but wait! Now Gary Bettman and the powers that be are tying to force Moyes out of his position of running the Coyotes, ala Obama and General Motors; but Bettman now says that Moyes has no power or authority to file bankruptcy because the NHL has been running the Coyotes since November and they are the authority. This comes three weeks removed from the NHL and Bettman denying any part of the hockey operations in Phoenix; after some Governors worried about some foul play.All this in an effort to keep Balsille from attaining any leverage in the league. The politics of pull. And you thought only politicians could have things both ways! And how can a sports team be ran by the executive branch of the sports league? And how can justice, fairness, and a competitive market exist with such interference and bias from the powers that be? I'm sure those who read my blog often can see where I am going with this, and how I detest this sort of thing. So I will hold back on the parallels of the governing bodies, but you may want to follow this story; it is a very interesting story. Oh yeah, you will have to look hard for many details or unbiased reporting on the Coyotes ordeal; bettman and the NHL control what can be said about the league as well as control the content each team can put on their own websites. Control the media, control the masses. Kinda scary, isn't it? And again I will digress from my political views, but you all see the writing on the proverbial wall, I'm certain.

And did I mention that Wayne Gretzky is heavily involved in the Phoenix Coyotes? Or the other scandals that have emerged from this storied franchise? And just as you can have no ill feelings toward our messianic president, you can harbor no ill towards a big crybaby like Gretzky; if you are involved in the NHL.

And speaking of athletes, who would have guessed that Brett Favre would be waffling on retirement? If it weren't so ridiculous it would be unbelievable. What's more amazing is that there will be, and has been one, teams that will want him to quarterback their team. He has cost one team a couple of Superbowls. He cost another team a head coach and a playoff birth. He is the equivalent to poison; if anyone would care to look at things realistically. His staistics are not impressive and his resume has serious credibilty issues. But his ego is so large that he punks everyone into believing his own press; that Favre is something bigger than life and able to win at any cost. I guess an incredibly large ego trumps ability and reason. And the sports media who are too lazy or biased to think for themselves totally buy into it becasue it helps ratings and polls. Sounds like our last presidential election to me. Or more like our congressional elections...

And speaking of another athlete buffoon, how about Manny Ramirez and his steroid scandal. Actually, steroid scandal is probably inaccurate since it occurs so frequently. It's not very scandalous when it happens every few weeks. Maybe it's more of an steroid outbreak; a steroid pandemic! After all, Manny merely went to the doctor for an illness and received and took some medication for his illness. No scandalous pandemic here. An athlete who makes his living off of his body, who knows his personal market value, who hires agents, public relations people, body guards, and etc. just took on blind faith, a medicine prescribed by a doctor and took the meds without any research or concern for how it would affect their body; a body that they train and condition for ultimate performance. Makes perfect sense to me...maybe some of these athletes should be banned 50 games for being ridiculous; then establish a precedent to ban politicians who are equally asinine....but back to the athletes; the most amazing thing is that people will stand behind and support athletes like Manny because of the promise and hope that their team will win, with no concern for the dire concern of the rest of the league. The purpose of the one to raise the few above the rest, trumps whatever is beneficial for the most. And you can throw principles out the window, forget heritage, and ignore the future. Again, sounds eerily familiar to me.

But back to the athletes; I propose that we make a party of athletes and have them run for our political offices. We read and hear that the Republicans are dying, just like the Democrats were after Clinton left office, so the athletic party can be our newest party. And then all of the athletic supporters(get it?!!?)can worship people and future leaders who are just as shifty, irresponsible, wishy-washy, negligent, egotistical, self-serving, power mad mavens as many of our politicians are these days. We can get out our "Favre for President" stickers and plaster them all over our vehicles. Manny for Governor, Gretzky head of Homeland Security (he would have to assign Marty McSorley as assistant and hide behind him like he did every where else he went) We could appoint A-Rod as a Supreme Court justice. Terrell Owens could be chief of staff, Kobe as secretary of state, Lawrence Phillips could be head of the CIA, so on and so forth. And theres no need to be concerned about requirements or ability; we would replace those old sentiments and traditions with worship, enamor, and blind faith. Pass the Kool-Aid please...

And I realize that there is a lot of vitriol, even for me, but I hope my point can be seen through the jaded haze of frustration. I hope that you can see more parallels to the relationship of celebrity and responsibility than my sophomoric writing allows. I hope the manner in which we dismiss our standards when it involves someone we deem ourselves to like, causes us to think of the repercussions of our celebrity worship, both now and in the future. I hope we can see that our blind faith can write a free pass to corruption, bias, and injustice. And the loss of hope, principles, and ethics will corrode the moral fabric of our society.

Of course celebrity worship in itself will not be the sole cause of an erosion of values; but I'm beginning to see that it may be at the root of it all. And a better writer with less interruptions could probably paint the picture much more clearly.