By By Matthew Nascone
With the fall sports in the Atmore area about to begin in a couple weeks, I figured I could take a spin around the wide world of sports. The biggest story in the national news seems to be the scandals rocking the three major sports.
The NBA has a cheating referee on one hand, the NFL has a superstar who is allegedly involved with dogfighting and Major League Baseball has the one and only Barry Bonds.
Let's start in the NBA. Former NBA referee Tim Donaghy supposedly shaved points off of games by the way he called them and he has supposed ties to organized crime. These two points have led some columnists and NBA fans to label this the biggest scandal to rock any of the major professional sports in years.
To me, it is a huge deal that cannot be left alone because this guy is the one who is supposed to bring integrity to the game by not allowing the players to play organized street ball.
I just hope commissioner David Stern deals with this quickly so people like me can stop talking about it. This is a problem that I think might not leave the public eye for a while though because you know if a questionable call is made, people will think of Donaghy.
And in the most popular sport in the land, Michael Vick has been linked to one of the biggest dogfighting rings on the East coast. He has denied involvement every time he has been asked about it, but the facts seem to be mounting on top of him faster than he can shove them off.
And there have been adamant protests for and against Vick, but I can't believe I am actually going to agree with the people from PETA, but this horrible act should not be ignored.
If it is determined that Vick was involved with the heinous acts, then he should be banned from the game for life. Or at least no company should endorse him because no matter whether they want to admit it or not, athletes are role models and one cannot be a good role model if one submits himself to such cruelty.
And now we will get to the greatest record in professional sports and how it is about to be broken by a cheat. Yeah, Barry Bonds has not been proven guilty of anything, but like Vick the evidence is stacked very high against him.
I mean the guy went on a jealous steroid rage that garnered him the single season home run title and now he wants to steal the career home run record of 755 from the Hammer, Hank Aaron.
This is just wrong. Barry has been a great player, but there is only one player in the history of the game who has hit more home runs after turning 32 than Barry. That right there points to his guilt. But I guess I am not a jury and Barry is still innocent until proven guilty, but the fans outside of San Fransisco agree that when Barry breaks the record it should read: 756*.
Matthew Nascone is sports editor of the Atmore Advance. He can be reached at 368-2123.