We fought the law, and the law is fighting back

It’s been a rough two years for professional sports. From the steroid witch hunt in baseball that began last season to the most recent crackdown on Bill Belichick’s sideline spy camera and the fining of Formula One team McLaren $100 million for cheating, professional sports has been mired with case upon case of athletes, coaches, and teams taking gamesmanship too far.

While looking for the competitive edge is something that every sports team will do in order to give themselves a better chance to win, players and teams have recently begun to see what will happen to those who are caught. I want to take a look at the crimes committed and punishments that have been doled out and attempt to justify them.

To begin, let’s talk baseball, where steroids, HGH, and BALCO have become almost commonplace in the dinner table talk of baseball fans everywhere. In no other sport has the crackdown on cheating been so public. However, many of the culprits of banned substance use have been minor leaguers, not the many big names that have been named in the Mitchell investigation that has been going on for months. Baseball’s punishments of 50 games, 100 games, and so on for repeated use has been widely viewed as a positive step in the curtailing of cheating in the sport. However, without the big names that many suspect to have used or are using banned substances, such as Barry Bonds, and now currently Jay Gibbons, Troy Glaus, and comeback kid Rick Ankiel, baseball is being investigated for not completely cooperating with governmental investigations into steroid use in baseball. While I applaud Bud Selig’s punishment for those caught, I find that the many players who have been suspected and possibly confirmed as cheaters are still playing. If not for these players’ abilities to make money for baseball, they would be suspended. Now, more than ever, baseball needs to crack down on cheating, because as this generation becomes known as the steroid generation, the legions of young fans who look up to their idol athletes and see them succeeding through immoral or illegal means will grow and the cycle will repeat for generations to come.

The NFL has been relatively free of public scrutiny as far as illegal substances has been concerned, with Shawne Merriman of San Diego, and more recently, Rodney Harrison of the New England Patriots being the big-name busts. However, it is the recent news of spying that currently has many in the NFL up in arms. Last week, a Patriots assistant was caught filming the New York Jets defensive signals. This, of course, is illegal in every way imaginable. What makes this worse is three-fold. Firstly, the ignorance and defiance that New England coach Bill Belichick showed when confronted with the accusation of his team cheating. According to a report from Yahoo! Sports, Belichick had to have his definition of camera use “redefined.” This shows a complete lack of respect for not only commissioner Roger Goodell, but for the league as a whole. The second problem is that this is not the first time the Patriots have been warned about such things. In fact, they have been warned each of the past two seasons prior to 2007-2008. Thirdly, the fact that many in the NFL are saying that this is something that occurs on a regular basis, and is accepted as “part of the game,” is a frightening idea. Now, Belichick was fined 500,000 dollars, the Patriots were fined 250,000 dollars, and the team will lose a first round draft pick if it makes the playoffs, or second and third round picks if it does not. I feel that this punishment almost does the crime justice. Out of respect to the Jets, I would have forced New England to forfeit the game. Of course New England should have won the game regardless, but because we will never know the extent that the video was used to help the Pats, the Jets should not be punished for being on the opposite sideline of a cheating team.

On to Formula One, a sport I am not as familiar with, but one that made major headlines recently when the McLaren team was fined 100,000,000 dollars and docked points in the standings for spying. I am not positive at how much this type of thing happens in the world of motor sports, but the punishment seems to fit the crime, and in fact, may be a bit too much. The docking of points in the race standings is a very good way of sending a message to McLaren and other teams that these types of actions will not be tolerated, and the fine will serve as a financial reminder as well. But 100 million dollars is an amazingly large sum of money. To put things in perspective, if you fined a major league baseball team 100 million dollars, all but seven of the thirty teams wouldn’t be able to field a team, and of the 7, 5 teams would have salaries under 16 million. I understand that racing is a big money venture and that teams can generate hundreds of millions of dollars per year, but a more reasonable fine of 25 million and perhaps the docking of additional points would have been a sufficient punishment.

As more and more teams and athletes are found guilty of cheating, whether it is by a league official, or simply in the public eye, the integrity of all sports is brought into question. For the sake of athletics across the world, I hope that more and more punishments are doled out to those who use illegal means to compete at a higher level. Sports fans are owed as much.