As long as there's been athletic competition involving money, there has been cheating. As early as 388 b.c. a boxer named Eupolus of Thessaly bribed three other boxers to take bribes in the Olympic games. Athletes have been cheating ever since.

It's important to keep this in mind when you hear people yearn for the good old days. "Steroids are ruining our hollowed records they'll say." How can my kid  root for criminals?" And don't for get this one, "These guys are so overpaid they don't care if we win or lose." Ultimately it's all nonsense.

These problems have been with sports as long as people have been receiving money to perform them. The truth is we alway idealize the way sports were when we was kids for exactly that same reason: we were kids.

The other stuff was there as Reggie Jackson was overpaid, ####lord Perry was a cheater, and Denny McLain was a crook. But how did our team do today Dad is all that matterd, so should it be now. Why should we realy care if the N.E. Patriots cheated? It isn't the first time and certainly will not be the last time a team or athlete will cheat to win.

Maybe I'm a rediculous optimist, but I truly believe that at the end of the day, when an athlete steps onto the field of play, he doesn't care if he's awaiting a trial date for a handgun possesion. He just wants to win...badly. More so than our saturated world of internet,radio and T.V. coverage will give him credit for. As fans that's what we should care about most and that's winning.

Can the sports world be a better place? sure it can. The ball however is in our court. We need to stop allowing the leagues to take advantage of us with start times later than our bed times. We need to stand up for our rights as fans. If owners will take our money to hear us scream in their arenas and stadiums, they can listen to us scream outside of them as well.