These days’ sports have not been so amusing. There’s not one day that goes by that I don’t hear about another scandal or fight in professional sports. The glory day’s of sports has seemed to drift away. Good attitudes and everything that’s right about sports no longer exist, only in a few.
Peyton Manning, Roger Clemens and Tim Duncan are positive role models for young children. On the other hand Terrell Owens, Jason Giambi and Ron Artest are not.
The four major sports (NFL, NBA, NHL, and MLB) have escaped the true meaning of sports, competition.
The NHL is not having any scandals or drug problems, they simply don’t have a league. For the past few months NHL hockey hasn’t even been in existence. Canadians and Americans have had to follow the IHL or collegiate hockey. The United States and Canada are currently losing money because of the NHL not ending the lockout. The NHL isn’t very popular in the United States anyways. And after this long lockout, expect perturbed, not happy fans.
The NHL needs to realize the impact in makes in sports and fans in North America. For Canadians there’s no way their going to drop hockey and follow the Toronto Raptors or Blue Jays. When the NHL ends their lockout hockey will hopefully have a successful league like they have had in the past.
The NFL is the most popular sport in the United States. The entire nation tunes in at least once on Sunday or Monday to watch football. The NFL as a league is probably in the best shape out of the four.
The biggest gripes about the NFL are the new “illegal contact rule” and excessive celebrations. The illegal contact rule is you cannot put your hands (not even a finger) on the opponent five yards after the line of scrimmage. This rule has caused teams to lose games and it has taken away the defensive perk of a physical defense.
For example the Cleveland Browns and Cincinnati Bengals had the second highest scoring game in modern history. That seems strange saying that both of these teams have decent defenses and not explosive offenses.
Also, Peyton Manning is only a few touchdowns away from breaking Dan Marino’s “unbreakable” touchdown’s in one season record. The reason Peyton is destroying the record is because he is taking advantage of the defensive units ability to not play a physical game.
The next bad thing about the NFL is excessive celebration. This is when a professional athlete scores a touchdown and gains two yards on a run and dances like Nelly and thinks he’s the king of the world. The best at this is Terrell Owens of Philadelphia, Chad Johnson of Cincinnati and Ray Lewis of Baltimore.
Is it that hard to act like a professional and act like you’ve done it before? A postal worker after delivering his mail doesn’t jump up and down and yell, because he’s doing his job.
The NFL is full of punks, punks that need an attitude change.
The NBA was on the right track until just recently. The big problems in the NBA are the brawl at Auburn Hills (Pistons arena) and then just uneducated refs.
The fight that took place a few weeks ago started a chain reaction of bad events. More fights have broken out in professional sports and the NBA has picked up a lot of bad press. Ron Artest and Stephen Jackson should not even be allowed back in the NBA and Jermaine O’Neal should have been suspended for the year. These Pacer players are professional athletes and the key work there is “professional”. There’s no reason for NBA athletes to ever get in a fight with fans. Just like in the NFL there are too many punks in the NBA.
Also that night in Auburn Hills, the ref’s did not control the game well. They let Ron Artest and Ben Wallace “dilly daggle” around and this sparked the incident. On the topic of ref’s I don’t think they have ever heard of traveling. Every NBA game at least every 5 minutes there’s a travel that is not called. I think there might be a rule that says you can take three-and-a-half steps in the NBA. Plus refs seem to favor athletes a little too much. I am a die-hard Cavaliers fan but LeBron James is receiving the “Michael Jordan treatment”. Michael Jordan never got fouled half of the time it was called and he always got his way in the NBA. It’s not only LeBron there’s some nights ref’s favor entire teams. The NBA is lacking good competition and solid rules. They need to suck the poison out of the league and that starts with a higher draft age and kicking out Ron Artest.
The MLB is a joke. The so-called “best player” in the league is in a steroid scandal. Major League Baseball is America’s past time and children all over the world look up to Major League players. Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi are in the middle of a steroid scandal that might erase their best season’s stats. Barry Bonds has shattered records and has been the best player in baseball these past few seasons.
Well, Barry needs to put the asterisk by his name because in the next coming months he will be admitting to his steroid use. Jason Giambi on the other hand has already ruined his career admitting to using steroids and injecting them in five different ways.
It was obvious to everyone that Bonds and Giambi were taking steroids. For example Barry Bonds weighed 70 pounds less then he did when he first entered the league and Jason Giambi gained at least 20 pounds in one off-season. Major League Baseball uses Barry Bonds and Giambi as poster boys of the league. After the steroid scandals Major League Baseball will be hurting because of this new trend of steroids.
Major League Baseball needs to do more vigorous testing on steroids and eliminate “cheaters” in the game. Jason Giambi should be banned from baseball and Bonds and Sheffield and any other athletes that have been using steroids should also be banned. If Pete Rose, the best baseball player of all time is not in the Hall of Fame before Barry “Steroid” Bonds, Major League Baseball will be tarnished for ever.
What in the world happened to integrity and good role models in sports? Hopefully new rules and time will change the four major sports back into professional leagues.
