Just about everyone has heard the admonishment from his or her parents at one time or another that "you should know right from wrong". The terse tone normally accompanying the phrase frequently indicated that the listener was about to be given an abject lesson on the difference. Things like it's right to help the old lady across the street, but wrong to kick her walker out from underneath her and take her purse. Similarly it's right to wait for the verdict before we put you in the electric chair and pull the switch. Conversely it's wrong to put you in the chair and pull the switch before the verdict, even though some would like that prescription sometimes.

How does this relate to sports? Simple. In the wonderful world of sports debates it's becoming more and more the case where ardent supporters of a player or team ignore the cold hard facts surrounding the topic and instead cling feverishly to arguments that sound right, but are in reality utterly and completely wrong. Those desperados of the cause, intentionally blind to the light, will take pillory and post rather than accept facts contrary to their "belief".

Take the Barry Bonds dramady for example. A significant number of people are devout in their fanaticism that Bonds has not been proven to take steroids. On the surface this sounds right, and in fact is right; Bonds has not been proven or admitted "knowingly" taking steroids. But the fact is he did take them. The whole sordid affair has been leaked from grand jury testimony that he took the "cream" and the "clear", both being steroid products from the BALCO labs. The leak was illegal, but that doesn't change the facts as admitted to by Bonds himself. What is it that makes some people willfully ignore what is right and proselytize what is wrong?

In conjunction with the Barry blemish is the incessant need to tarnish others to lessen the impact of Bonds' maladroit behavior. Both Hank Aaron and Babe Ruth have been subject to fanciful screeds that sound right, but again, are staggering in their actual wrongness. We read how Ruth faced wimpy arms that pitched full games, yet there is silence about the arms like Koufax, Gibson, Mclain, Drysdale and others that 30 years ago were Hall of Fame bound for pitching complete games. One Bonds acolyte has even gone so far as to claim Ruth hit most of his home runs over a short fence at Yankee stadium, confidently ignoring reams of firsthand newspaper and eyewitness accounts of each and every home run ever hit by Ruth, stating the exact opposite.

Hank Aaron has now been branded a drug user for his offhand remark that he took a "greenie" once. Once. It is perfectly right to say that Aaron took amphetamines. Once. Foolishly wrong to infer he took them any length of time. And yet that unpretentious comment has now evolved into the clarion call to smear Aaron for all his work ethic and professional accomplishments throughout his career.

Quite simply put, some people never learn how to tell right from wrong.