my blue heaven

act like you've been there before.

that's what's commonly said about athletes who perform exaggerated celebrations after routine accomplishments. don't pose and preen after a scoring a touchdown, hitting a home run or burying a 3-point shot. it's a part of your job - you've done it previously, you expect to do it and you'll do it again. no big whoop.

but what if you've really never been there before? what then?

as an "esteemed member of the media" i've seen my share of press boxes and done my share of interviews, but today was different. i was covering the dodgers.

i don't want to give you the impression that i couldn't keep my objective wits about me. on the outside, i was the picture of professionalism. sure, i made the typical rookie mistakes like not knowing where to find the media parking lot, the credentialing table, the press box or my spot in it. but at least i looked like i belonged.

on the inside, i was as happy as adam lambert in a mascara factory. walking down the halls lined looking at old black and white photos with greats like robinson, reese, koufax and drysdale would be awesome for any baseball fan, but even better if you're part of the blue crew during your down time.

if you've done this dozens of times, seeing vin scully, dressed in a dodger blue-tinged blazer, standing in the doorway to the press box doesn't make you want to run over and tell him that he has the greatest job in the world and how much you'd love to have it (but only after he's done with it, of course). 

if you've done this dozens of times, you don't have the urge to tell fernando valenzuela that your first memories of watching baseball revolve around fernandomania and that crazy rookie season of 1981. 

if you've done this dozens of times, seeing Nancy Bea and Mike Brito don't secretly make you happy inside. the dodger dogs don't smell quite as good and the cookies aren't quite as chocolatey.

covering your team for the first time is truly a labor of love. it showed a bit when i stumbled over my first question during a short interview with orlando hudson. after all, the o-dog had become an immediate fan favorite in los angeles (that's what happens when you hit for the cycle in your home debut). 

once the game started and i was in front of my computer, i began to feel more at home. though it would have been nice to see the dodgers win (they're 0-2 when i've been in the stadium this year, by the way). they say it's never as good as your first time, but it's also never as awkward.

i ain't mad at 'cha

i was having a discussion with a friend recently. not an actual discussion...just a series of text messages, the whole of which constitute the average 21st century discussion. but i digress.

the topic was performance enhancing drugs and the men who love them. he was partially filled with moderate indignation that a whole generation of players could cheat the game.

i didn't care.

he said they only way they should get into the hall of fame is if they buy a ticket.

i didn't care.

he had no problem if a generation of hall of fame classes looked like this guy.

i kinda cared. but not enough.

you see, i'm burned out on cheaters and scum. i've had my fill of scandal and situations. some days the sports world feels as foreign (and dangerous) as mos eisley.

in short...my anger reservoir is dry.

baseball player busted for 'roids? yawn. football player gets caught packing heat? ho-hum. basketball player smokes two joints before he smokes two joints? whatever. let him smoke two more.

as i get older, my sports philosophy borrows from frank cushman. you remember cush; jerry maguire's quarterback prodigy who tried to remove himself from the maguire-sugar feud with one simple phrase.

"i just want to play football."

that's where i am right now. i've heard all the arguments ad nauseum. they're cheaters! they're criminals! kick 'em out, lock 'em up and let 'em rot! my response can be summed up in a pair of simple if-then questions.

a) if they are playing, then how will they help the team?

or

b) if they are not playing, then how will it hurt the team?

in short (with all apologies to jerry o'connell) i just want to watch ball.

there have always been cheaters, criminals and miscreants in professional sports and no amount of finger pointing and spotlighting bad behavior is going to prevent it in the future. it has little to do with money, talent or entitlement. some people have a knack for finding trouble. some of them just happen to run, jump, throw, hit, catch better than the rest of us. the sooner we accept it, the sooner we can all move on.

of course, if this attitude catches on, the 24-hour sports news cycle that thrives on creating, reporting and exasperating train wrecks might cannibalize itself. which most likely would put me on the bread line.

that's a scandal i'd certainly care about that.

a-rod's on roids....so what?!?

the world of sports has stopped to bring you a breaking non-story.

alex rodriguez reportedly tested positive for steroids in 2003.

every news organization leading with this story will give any number of reasons that this is earth shattering information.

1. a-rod is baseball's biggest star playing on the biggest stage for the game's biggest team.
   
2. a-rod has led us to believe that he was clean.
3. a-rod is after the most hallowed record in american sports.
   
4. a-rod was going to deliver baseball from evil.
5. a-rod is the guy that people love to hate.

so now that we believe that a-rod really is a-fraud, where's the story? before we light our torches and grab our pitchforks to storm count bud selig's castle, what exactly are we mad about? yes, there's a new poster boy for the scourge of performance enhancing drugs that will eventually enslave our children. but beyond that, what did we learn that we didn't know already?

1. baseball players in 2003 tested positive for steroids.
2. baseball players lied about using steroids.
3. baseball personnel looked the other way when it came to steroid use.

it was no secret that baseball tested players in 2003. it was equally public that if five percent or more tested positive that testing would be made mandatory the following year. guess what, folks? testing would be made mandatory the following year.

the only argument about this story that has any shred of weight is why there are 103 other names that haven't been revealed. but even if we learned their names, what does that solve?

in what we now call the Steroid Era, finding out who took performance enhancing drugs is a little like finding out which actor or musician is gay - except in baseball you don't get a softly lit photo spread in people magazine.

if there's a silver lining, it's that we no longer have a witch hunt on our hands. the majority of the accusations have some basis of fact. but this finger pointing stage we've entered is no more productive than the verbal boiling in oil that so many participated in previously.

if everyone in and around the game is truly interested in cleaning it up (and i believe they are), then talking about who did it serves no purpose. the league has taken a big step by adding serious punishments that appear to have had an effect. the next step is to find a way to keep up with the cheaters. if not to stay in step with their methods, at least to be close enough on their heels that cheating doesn't seem worth the effort.

take a tip from vegas. bring some of the cheaters over to your side. learn from them. study their methods. that may mean a little extra money comes out of the owners coffers every year to pay for r&d. but if the players are going to be punished for their actions, management deserves some consequence for their complicity.

the game is good. always has been. it's survived game fixing scandals and labor strife. flourished in wartime. stood a model for social change. this is merely a brushback pitch.