Professional Sports Have Become Tainted With Reality

If you are like me in any way, you love sports. Not just the sport itself, but the passion and traditions of the game. You love the fact that sports is away to get away from everyday life; it's an escape from normality. That purity is the reason we love the game.

But if you are like me lately, you can't help but shake your head at what the sports world has become.  Every day on ESPN seems to bring another headline about steroid abuse, or who is holding out to get another million dollars, or who is bashing who and what coaches have lost control of their team. The list goes on and on. And it makes you sad.

It makes you sad to see one of the greatest pitchers of our time may have cheated his way to the top. It's sad to see the great Hank Aaron's sacred home run record fall in a question of cheating, seeing the last true baseball players' chances of breaking it fall in a cloud of question marks.

You may turn on the TV and see our American hero and Olympic legend partaking in illegal drugs. Or, you may see some of the greatest athletes and wide receivers in the world preform below their potential because they are too busy calling out coaches and teammates, carrying guns, or crying about salaries.

You may see athletes from every sport hold out on themselves and their teammates for a wealthier contract. They are willing to sacrifice their seasons, both for their team and their fans, because they aren't getting $20 million instead of $19 million. 

No matter how serious you consider these offenses to be, we have appointed these people as heroes. They are who we look up to in time of need, especially in today's economic crisis. They can offer us an escape and brief moments of happiness that keep us sane. 

But they are pushing me and millions of sports fans to the limit. They are bringing in the world's problems and putting them into the games where they don't belong.

I will always love sports. But I miss how the games used to be played. I miss the purity of it. I miss the legacies and legends and magical wonder of sports. I miss that complete escape from reality that I used to get.

The games are still my life, but they are tainted with reality now.