doodledee

I've had fun watching how the media (and by extension, our entire culture) has reacted to the various problems that the NBA, NHL and now MLB are having. Per tradition, I'll leave the real sports talk to JoePa, but here's how I see it.

• NBA - Ron Artest and his insane posse of clowns put a beat down on some fans in Detroit. Media instantly swells with "overpaid thugs" commentary. ESPN takes major heat for pointing at least a partial-finger at the fans. NBA-haters single out the brawl as exactly the type of reason they don't like the game. Too bad they didn't stay up late to watch the Wolves/Suns the other night, because that's what NBA basketball should look like.
• NHL - Players and league can't work out a collective bargaining agreement and a strike ends the season before it starts. The major media pretty much ignores it. Local Minnesota media runs nostalgic sweeps pieces about how great St. Paul used to be when the Wild were playing. North Carolina media tries in vain to find anyone who even knew they had a team. Bertuzzi-induced "stop the cheap violence" talk seems to have vanished. It's all about getting the game back now.
• MLB - Steroid scandal rocks the sport. Front page news across the country, much focusing on the 'integrity of the game'. (Reminder: baseball is old or something.) Heat ratcheted-up on the league to at least pretend to address the problem instead of just *winking* it away yet again. A nation of diehard fans forced to look inward. Casual fans bewildered how anyone didn't just assume those guys were juicing all along. Seriously - duh.
• NFL - Vikings lose horribly to the Bears. Daunte does post-game locker room interviews wearing some kind of crazy-huge fur coat. Nobody says anything. Uhh, there's your story, people.

So there's that, then.