Sports Feeling the Budgetary Pinch

It used to be that attending a professional or college sports event was a way to escape the troubles of life.

But the recession is having an impact on that as well.

Sports teams still need to have a certain number of players to fill out their rosters, and they need a head coach (or manager, as such a person is called in baseball) and assistant coaches. How large a given team's front–office staff happens to be depends, I suppose, on the owner and his/her organizational needs. But, having said that, I must add that I have heard no reports about job cuts by sports teams.

However, there are other indications that sports teams are under mounting financial pressure.

For example, there is an interesting article by radio show host Clark Howard at CNN.com, in which he reports on the bargain prices fans can get for tickets to sports events these days.

I've been a sports fan all my life. I used to drive to St. Louis every year to go to Cardinals games with my best friend from high school, who moved up there more than 20 years ago. I've been to many college football games, as well as a few pro football games, but I would be hard pressed to recall the last time I went to a sports event. And a big part of the reason was the price of tickets.

Not so long ago, the big story in sports was how ticket prices continued to go up in every sport. Fans complained about it but, apparently, continued to fork over increasingly high prices for tickets — as well as escalating prices for food and drinks and souvenirs.

Howard observes the deals being offered on tickets these days and speculates that the next phase will be "real labor strife in the professional leagues," which he suggests could lead to lockdowns in professional sports.

"Sports figures are entertainers," he writes, making an important point. Most athletes work hard during the offseason, as well as during the regular season, but they are entertainers, the same as rock musicians performing in concerts or actors whose portrayals — in person or on the silver screen — have been bringing in millions of dollars in revenue every year.

These days, if people are having to choose between buying tickets to a baseball game or putting food on the table, it's not hard to guess which one most people are going to choose. If they absolutely have to see the game, most people will watch it on TV and have a hot dog and a beer at home instead of driving to the ballpark, paying to park their cars and then paying for concessions on top of paying for tickets.

For many people, the choices are no longer the easy ones like the one I just described. These days, many people are having to choose between whether to continue paying the mortgage or continue paying for their COBRA health insurance benefits. That's a tougher choice, but many people will opt to make sure there is a roof over their heads and gamble that their good health will continue.

If nothing else, facing choices like that forces people to prioritize. And anything that qualifies as entertainment is regarded as a luxury — one that many people feel they cannot afford.

Howard concedes that viewing professional athletes as entertainers may not be a popular opinion, but "I think that as entertainers they should be able to make whatever the market will bear. That market is going to bear a lot less, and those entertainers are going to make less moving forward. But it also means that so many professional teams that have been priced out of your league are now going to be affordable again for the ordinary fan to go see."

If Howard is right, what will that mean in the ongoing tug-of-war between sports and steroids? Players like Alex Rodriguez have high-salary, guaranteed contracts, but what about the lesser talents who will face more and more pressure just to be able to win a spot on the roster? Will there be even more temptation to use steroids as budgets get squeezed tighter and tighter?

I'm inclined to think that there will be. It's another example of how neglect is catching up with us, and there is a high price to be paid for it. But it's a price that will have to be paid in ways that don't depend raising rates at the turnstiles.

The fans can no longer afford it.

Sports and Drugs — An Unending Story

The recent revelations of Alex Rodriguez's steroids use in 2003 have prompted me to revisit the issue of drugs and sports.

I was particularly struck by an article that ran in Sports Illustrated nearly a year ago, when Brett Favre's "retirement" from pro football was on the cover.

The article was written by Jack McCallum, and it essentially told readers not to blame sports for the prevalence of performance-enhancing drugs.

"We are a juiced nation," he wrote, making the point that there is a lot of money to be made. McCallum went on to quote Dr. Mark Gordon, a member of the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine, who said a 2004 study indicated that more than $1 billion was spent annually on legal human growth hormones (HGH). "And it's safe to assume it's gone up in the last four years," Gordon told McCallum.

It's hard to argue with some of McCallum's conclusions about steroids use in other segments of society — Hollywood, for example, where a plastic surgeon told McCallum, "If you're an actor in Hollywood and you're over 40, you are doing HGH. Period. Why wouldn't you? It makes your skin look better, your hair, your fingernails, everything."

McCallum wrote that "steroids are all over the culture," and I'm sure that is true. And surveys suggest that the lure of the good looks that steroids can produce is more enticing to young people than the desire to excel in sports. I was a teenager once myself, and, while I was never inclined to play football in high school, I did wish I possessed the sexy body that I believed the girls wanted. If steroids had been around in those days, I might have been tempted to take that shortcut if I had believed that it would mean I could have any girl I wanted.

But medical science is providing more and more evidence that steroids use can have deadly consequences — whether the objective was to be more sexually appealing or to be the next Babe Ruth.

Peer pressure isn't just tough on adolescents, who tend to think they are indestructible, anyway. Adults are subject to even more pressure — to keep up with others, to constantly compare themselves and their accomplishments to others.

No one likes to get older. But it's a natural part of life. Some steroids have a legitimate role to play — but that's a decision for a qualified physician to make, in relation to recovery from an injury. The unauthorized use of steroids, whether administered by a coach or a teammate or the athlete in question, needs to be stopped.

Sports boards and organizations need to focus their efforts on cracking down on this, even if means toppling all the Alex Rodriguezes from the pedestals on which they are perched. Baseball is paying for two decades of neglect. The other sports need to follow its lead and put the well being of their athletes ahead of trophies and revenue.

But even if the subject of steroids is adequately dealt with, sports still will need to be diligent about responding to the presence of anything that gives even a subtle hint of the existence of cheating.

It's a problem with no ultimate resolution, a story without an end.

Bowler Wins First PBA Title

I'm a fan of the TV show "M*A*S*H." I can't say that I remember every episode or every line of dialogue, but, every once in awhile, I remember a line from that show that seems to be appropriate for the occasion.

Yesterday, a bowler named John Nolen won his first PBA event, the USBC Masters in Las Vegas.

When I read this item of news, I remembered a line delivered by the "Hot Lips" Houlihan character in a "M*A*S*H" episode. I may have the episode wrong, but it seems to me that, in this episode, nearly everyone in the camp was down with the flu so Hot Lips and Hawkeye had to handle all the necessary tasks themselves — including all the surgery on the wounded who were brought in.

Hot Lips, of course, was a nurse. She wasn't a surgeon. She had medical training, but she wasn't a surgeon. So, as I recall, when Hawkeye put her in charge of a fairly routine surgical procedure, she said to him, "I've never done this before."

And Hawkeye, who never seemed to be at a loss for words, replied, "I'll bet you can't remember the first time you said that!"

Most of us probably can't remember the first time we said "I've never done this before," but I'd be willing to bet that Nolen, 29, will remember winning his first PBA title.

"This means everything to me," Nolen said. It also means a $60,000 prize and a two-year PBA Tour exemption.

Perhaps Hot Lips' remark had more relevance than I first thought. Later in the series, fans learned she was an accomplished bowler whose skill saved the 4077th in a bowling competition with another outfit that had reeled off an impressive streak of wins in just about everything else.

A Strange Time in Sports

Time was when sports was a way for people to escape the cares of their daily lives.

One of my favorite sports writers, Red Smith, once observed that people went to sporting events to have fun, then they picked up the newspaper the next day to read about it "and have fun all over again."

But these are strange days in sports.

• Last weekend, I wrote on this blog about the trouble Alex Rodriguez was having with the revelation that he tested positive for steroids in 2003.
  
  Joel Sherman of the New York Post writes that the Yankee organization and Rodriguez's teammates will stand by him. Both are committed to him through 2017 because of the rich contract he signed with the Yankees.
  
  "As bizarre as it might sound considering current events," Sherman writes, "A-Rod actually has more job security than anyone in baseball."
  
  The Rodriguez revelation is another opportunity for some to play the race card. Jason Whitlock writes, for Fox Sports, that the "furor" over Rodriguez and Barry Bonds is really about protecting the legacy of a revered white hero, Babe Ruth.
  
  Now, I realize there are some differences between Whitlock and myself that affect our perceptions. He is black, I am white. I am also more than seven years older than he is, which may not be a lot in the great scheme of things, but it means I'm old enough to remember when Ruth's home run record was surpassed by Hank Aaron. I was 14 when that happened, and Whitlock was not yet 7.
  
  Aaron was one home run away from tying Ruth when the 1973 season ended, and he had to endure an offseason filled with the racism and the hate of those who wanted Ruth to remain the all-time home run king before being allowed to take the field and claim the record. But he did so with his natural abilities, just as Ruth did a couple of generations earlier. That, to me, has always been the difference between Ruth and Aaron and today's ball players who have exceeded (in Bonds' case) or who threaten to exceed (in Rodriguez's) the all-time mark with the help of performance-enhancing drugs.
  
  The "furor" has never been about racism for me. It's about cheating. Aaron and Ruth didn't cheat. Bonds and Rodriguez did.
  
  When Whitlock writes, "Barry Bonds threatened Ruth's legacy in a way Hank Aaron never could," it implies a lack of understanding about the reality of the times. In 1974, George Wallace was still a political force in America. School busing was still a prominent issue in America.
  
  If steroids had been a potential factor in the 1970s, I'm sure many in the anti-Aaron camp would have seized on it. But he could not be accused of cheating, so the underlying objection was about race. The passage of time — and the rise of Bonds and Rodriguez — may permit some, like Whitlock, to conveniently overlook that racism was alive and well in the 1970s, even if it was no longer legally sanctioned in places where it had been only a few years earlier.
  
  Rodriguez has been a respected star in baseball, who was often cited as proof that great things can be accomplished if a player relies strictly on his natural abilities. But the revelation of his steroids use has prompted many to second-guess their conclusions. Commissioner Bud Selig suggested, to USA Today, that he would consider reinstating Aaron as baseball's all-time home run king.
  
  Tom Knott writes, in the Washington Times, that, as far as the fans are concerned, there are already asterisks attached to the names of many modern stars.
  
  "Selig's sudden philosophical shift comes about 20 years too late," says Knott. "His anxiety over the record book comes late, too."


• One of the all-time great football players (in my opinion) — Brett Favre — appears to have called it quits — for good, this time. But some continue to raise doubts.
  
  Dennis Dillon of The Sporting News, for example, suggests that Favre, who will turn 40 before the next NFL season ends, may be setting the stage for another return to football, this time with Green Bay's rivals from Minnesota, the Vikings.
  
  Dillon may prove to be right. Perhaps we won't know for certain until training camp opens in the summer. Maybe a few months off to rest will give him time to persuade himself, again, that he can still do things he did when he was 10 years younger. But, as I wrote on this blog in recent days, I think Favre may be finished this time. His December collapse with the Jets may have been the wake-up call he needed.
  
  I disagree with Mark Bradley of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution when he says Favre "is the most overrated athlete of our time."
  
  For nearly two full decades, Favre played football in one of the harshest climates imaginable, but he took the Packers to two consecutive Super Bowls. It was a coaching decision that cost the Packers the second one, not an on-the-field decision. And Favre won three MVPs — more than anyone else in NFL history.
  
  And he also established a record for consecutive starts that may well last forever. In the process, he set many records that may prove just as elusive for future quarterbacks. He revived a franchise that had been given up for dead many times in the decades since Bart Starr was the quarterback and Vince Lombardi was the coach.
  
  Overrated? Hardly.

As I say, these are strange days in the world of sports.

But when hasn't it been a strange time for sports fans? I used to work on the sports copy desk for a metropolitan newspaper. During my days there, a great college basketball player, Len Bias, was thought to be the next star of the Boston Celtics when he was taken second in the NBA draft in 1986. But less than two days later, he died of a heart attack following a cocaine overdose.

When I came in to work that Thursday, I was immediately assigned the job of compiling information from the various wire services. I had envisioned, when I began working for the sports department, editing stories and writing headlines about games and coaching techniques. But that day, my attention was focused on real world issues, like drug abuse and drug laws and the death of an athlete at the tender age of 22.

I felt much the same way four years later. By that time, I had moved to a new state, where I was pursuing my master's degree, and I was working on the sports desk of another newspaper. College basketball star Hank Gathers collapsed and died during a game.

Gathers' death was not brought on by a drug overdose, but I still experienced a sense of "déjà vu." Once again, serious matters intruded into what should have been a pleasurable world.

I guess my point is that you can never completely escape from serious issues, whether you seek that escape through the sport that is in season or the darkness of a movie theater. The escape can only be temporary, and then, eventually, you are faced once again with the issue you sought to escape — be it the untimely death of someone like Bias or Gathers or the unpleasantness of seeking work in a contracting economy.

Escapism is temporary and fleeting. What remains is real, and it will always be there, waiting for you.

Really, Brett? Is It 4 Real This Time?

Brett Favre says his magnificent NFL career is over now.

Of course, it was about this time last year that Favre announced his retirement — then he decided to come back when training camp opened.

So, with Brett Favre, it's always wise to give this kind of thing a little time.

But I'm inclined to believe Favre when he says this time it's the real thing.

Favre has played for 18 seasons now. That's a long career for anyone but especially for a quarterback. What's really amazing about Favre is that he played in so many games, in spite of being sacked by some of the greatest defensive linemen of his time and in spite of being slammed by those same linemen, whether he threw the ball or took the loss.

Emotionally, it was probably more difficult to leave the Packers and leave pro football at the same time — although, in hindsight and in part because I've been a Packers fan longer than Favre has been alive, maybe I felt that way because I was grateful for what he had meant to the franchise and I was reluctant to see it end.

If I, as a fan — and one who has never been to a game at Lambeau Field, either — felt that reluctance, I have no trouble accepting that Favre himself had difficulties with leaving the game he had played for so many years at the same time he left the city where he played it in the majority of those years.

And he couldn't do it. He returned and worked his magic for the New York Jets as well as he could. But he's 39 years old now, and it's harder to overcome aches and pains when you're about to turn 40 than it was when you were 25. He nearly took what had been a 4-12 team to the playoffs, but he ran out of gas in the last month of the season — and that seems to have been the deal breaker.

I'm sure Favre would have liked to win a second Super Bowl ring, but his last best shot at that came with Green Bay the year before — when his Packers lost to the Giants in overtime in the NFC Championship. In hindsight, it would have been better to leave the NFL after narrowly missing the Super Bowl. Favre had two Super Bowl appearances in the 1990s; some of the great NFL quarterbacks never get the chance to play in more than one Super Bowl, and some never play in one at all.

Favre's spot in NFL history is secure. Green Bay has already asserted its intention to retire his number when an appropriate amount of time has passed. And New York's new coach, Rex Ryan, will never have the opportunity to coach Favre, but he summed it up for everyone: "If he's not the best quarterback ever, then he's certainly in the conversation."

'A-Fraud' Can't Compete With Evidence

Alex Rodriguez apparently came clean today, acknowledging, in an interview with ESPN's Peter Gammons, what just about everybody already knew.

He used steroids.

Rodriguez gave the following as his excuse — he was young, he was naïve, he was under a lot of pressure to produce because of the extremely lucrative contract he signed a few years earlier.

Well, cry me a river.

Thomas Boswell wrote, in today's Washington Post, that Rodriguez needed to tell the truth and live with the consequences.

But he also suggested that, at some point, we need to finish this and move on.

Indeed we do. But this isn't finished — not until the whispers that remain about other ballplayers have stopped. And that won't be achieved unless we permit the investigations in baseball to run their course. A player's personal popularity is no measure of whether he is guilty of using steroids or not — Roger Clemens and Mark McGwire were popular with the fans, but they appear to be as guilty of steroids use as Barry Bonds, who was widely disliked and now faces perjury charges.

And Rodriguez has been generally popular, although there have always been fans who resented his enormous paycheck — and his inability to lead teams to the World Series.

Using steroids is cheating, plain and simple. Joe Posnanski is right when he writes, for Sports Illustrated, that Rodriguez didn't need to take steroids. He had an abundance of talent.

Some players with far less talent may have felt that steroids would keep them playing longer and help them play better than they might otherwise. But Rodriguez wasn't one of those players. In 2003, when he tested positive for steroids, Rodriguez was the highest-paid player in baseball, by far, and he was widely viewed to be a natural talent. He was still in his 20s, and people were speaking of him in the same way they speak of the legendary players of the past.

Well, Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron and Willie Mays combined for more than 2,000 home runs, and none of them ever took steroids. They accomplished things with their natural talents. Many others may have wished they had those skills, and some may have resented the fact that Ruth and Aaron and Mays had those skills, and they did not.

But that's the way life is. Some people have natural skills — whether those skills are for hitting a baseball or playing a musical instrument or performing on the silver screen — that have the potential to produce a lot of income. Most do not.

It is good, as Barack Obama said tonight, that baseball is taking this issue seriously — at last. It has taken 20 years, but perhaps now baseball is sending an unmistakable signal to the young people of America that "there are no shortcuts." That may be the only good thing to come of this, but, if so, it may be sufficient.

For baseball to restore its integrity, it must rid itself of the cheaters — just as it did in the wake of the "Black Sox Scandal" 90 years ago.

'Pay-Rod' Paying the Price

Here in Texas, when Alex Rodriguez signed his mega-million-dollar contract to play for the Texas Rangers, his nickname of "A-Rod" was immediately transformed to "Pay-Rod."

These days, he plays third base for the New York Yankees, but, earlier in his career, he was a shortstop. Shortstops are notorious for being weak hitters — typically — but Rodriguez is 12th on the all-time home run list with 553.

If he hits 47 more, he will join a very exclusive club — only half a dozen major league baseball players have hit as many as 600 home runs in their careers and, unless Rodriguez spends a lot of time on the disabled list (or is otherwise unable to play), he will easily be the youngest to achieve it. Babe Ruth was 36 when he hit his 600th home run; Rodriguez is only 33.

There may be some doubt, however, about his future in major league baseball.

Selena Roberts and David Epstein write in Sports Illustrated that Rodriguez tested positive for two steroids (testosterone and Primobolan) in 2003, when, as a shortstop for the Rangers, he won the American League home run crown and the AL Most Valuable Player award.

Kevin Kaduk writes, in "Big League Stew" for Yahoo!, that, if the report is true, it will be devastating.

I don't know if I would go that far. Some of the recent revelations about steroid use in baseball truly were devastating. I have the feeling that baseball fans are becoming accustomed to it, and some may have suspected that Rodriguez had been guilty of using steroids in the past.

Rodriguez faces no penalty or legal action because "the survey testing that took place in 2003 was intended to be non-disciplinary." It was also intended to be anonymous, so major league baseball is making no comment on the report. In 2003, there was no penalty or punishment for a positive test.

However, at the very least, the allegations will be a distracting cloud that follows Rodriguez through the 2009 season and, in all likelihood, beyond.

There may be some logical explanations about testosterone — it is available by prescription for some uses. Primobolan, however, has no approved prescription use — but it is regarded as a "weak steroid" and is typically used with other steroids.

If such an explanation exists, Rodriguez is not required to disclose it unless he decides to do so on his own. But such an explanation may be regarded with suspicion today. As Pete Gaines points out in Deadspin, Rodriguez flatly denied ever taking steroids in a 2007 interview with Katie Couric.

New York is clearly not the place where a professional athlete wants to play with this kind of controversy swirling around him. Joel Sherman writes, in the New York Post, that the Yankees must regret signing him to a new 10-year, $275 million contract in 2007, with a clause that would pay him an additional $30 million if he breaks Barry Bonds' all-time career home run mark — less than two months after he opted out of the last three years of his old contract.

There is bound to be more reaction from New York. It is a city that takes baseball very seriously. Rodriguez was expected to add to the Yankees' extensive list of World Series championships — but New York hasn't even won an American League pennant since Rodriguez has been on the roster.