The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions

The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions

If you grew up a sports fanatic, which I will go ahead and assume most of you did as you probably wouldn’t be reading this otherwise, you dreamed of being the guy to hit the game winning shot, score the game winning touchdown, or get the walk off hit ensuring victory for your team. That’s just human nature, we’ve all done it. No one is dreaming of being the guy that passes the ball to the open teammate, the guy who sets the block, or the guy who draws the walk, and in turn gives someone else the glory. We dream of being the superstar that everyone talks about and envies, making more money than we could even imagine and thinking about how great our lives would be. We’re sports heroes with deep pockets, fan adulation, and not a worry in the world; what could be better than that? A funny thing happens though on the way to making those dreams a reality. We realize either we aren’t good enough and sports isn’t in our future, or we realize that after having a taste of the good life, we will do anything we can to sustain it. This brings us to the impending investigation and likely suspension of 20 Major Leaguers for their part in a performance enhancing drug scandal.

Guys like Alex Rodriguez and Ryan Braun, they’ve had these same dreams as you and I but they are part of the lucky few who actually get to realize the dream and see it become reality. They’ve had people telling them for years how good they are, how talented they are, how bright their futures are going to be. The dream is fulfilled they’ve become big leaguers; but a startling realization sets in. Not everyone is achieving this success and fame naturally. They struggle with the thought of being like everyone else and artificially gaining an edge. They know it’s not the right thing to do and it’s a mistake but then the justification sets in. If they don’t do it, someone else will, and that person could take their spot. Everyone else is doing it, why can’t they? If they don’t do it they won’t be successful and all these dreams they’ve had will never come true. At the same time though, if they get caught, people will crucify and vilify their names, knowing they had the natural talent to get to the mountain top, they didn’t need to take the shortcut. Their Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions sure, but the execution is flawed.

Everyone likes to talk of baseball as if it is the Holy Trinity of sports. It’s the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost all rolled into one. It spans generations, bringing families and people of all backgrounds together because it’s America’s pastime. What everyone fails to realize though is that kind of thinking is just as delusional as the thinking of the athletes using performance enhancing drugs. Steroids have been the elephant in the room for years, we all know it’s there; we just never want to talk about it. We continue to watch and cheer for these guys despite what we know or believe to be the reason for the success. In the end, we as fans are just as much to blame as the athletes are. We drag them down for their bad decision making, even if their intentions are good. We crucify guys for doing something they shouldn’t, when five minutes ago we suspected it and cheered anyway. We want to celebrate championships and milestones by any means necessary because it gives us the bragging rights that our team or our guy is better than anyone else’s. Who cares how we get to Heaven as long as the end result is standing in front of the pearly gates. Just don’t be shocked when God tells you despite your good intentions, Hell is that way.