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.
