The Seven Deadly Sins

Pride and Lust -

Barry Bonds was indicted on perjury charges yesterday.

Dave over at the Coffin Corner already has this pretty well covered, but I did want to cover a few things in regards to this.

According to the AP report, Bonds started taking the cream, clear, and anabolic steroids the year after the "magical" steroid induced home-run race between Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa in 1997. Pride and lust took over. It wasn't enough for Bonds to be considered among the best players in baseball. He wanted everyone to call him the best period.

He clamored, yelled, and screamed for the love of the fans and the louder he yelled, like a five year old pitching a fit, the more we looked at him as a petulant little child. He lusted for our approval, and couldn't get it outside of his home stadium.

Now he has a federal prosecutor to deal with - those with the 95 percent conviction rate. And that's after those who settle without going to court.

I've run the numbers before, and it turns out that people that beat the rap in federal court comes to somewhere in the neighborhood of 5 out of every 1000 cases. Five. This is what pride and envy has gotten Bonds.

Of course, comically, Bonds has threatened to boycott the Hall of Fame. With the way this is coming down, don't be surprised if he never gets there.

Gluttony and Greed -

Alex Rodriguez and Scott Boras rolled the dice believing that they could get $350 million over the next year from some chump. Boras called that figure a starting point for negotiations, meaning he believed that he could have gotten his client more than that. The positive spin that is put on this is that A-Rod has signed, consecutively, the two biggest contracts in the history of Major League Baseball.

However, it can't be overlooked that Boras overestimated his client's worth by a minimum of $80 million, and possibly more. That translates to $8 million per year or a total of 29 percent of the overall contract's average annual worth. That's a huge mistake.

Envy -

As the Patriots batter their way closer to an undefeated season, the 1972 Dolphins from Don Shula down through the players are handling the threat to their record with something considerably less than class and aplomb. If anything, Shula is coming off as envious of what is happening, firing preemptive strike after preemptive strike - pretty much calling the Patriots season tainted and claiming his 1972 Dolphins as the best team ever.

I find it funny that someone whose own team was fined a first round pick for tampering talks about someone else doing something outside of the rules, and then claims that his team - one that played the third weakest schedule in the history of the NFL during the Super Bowl era - was the "best ever."

I respect what the Dolphins accomplished, but let's face it, they did it against the weakest competition of any Super Bowl winner - and to start shouting "look at me, we were better," does nothing but tarnish the 'Phins' legacy.

Sloth -

Adam "Pacman" Jones applied for reinstatement to the NFL and was turned down. Part of Jones' enforced off-season during which Roger Goodell told the troubled corner that a shortening of his suspension would be based on how he handled the time he had off.

Jones, who has had to perform community service in relation to one of his many arrests, gave inner city kids in Atlanta tickets to his pay per view wrestling event in the hopes of satisfying his community service requirement. For a guy trying to show his employers that he's working to do the right thing, that's about as lazy as it gets.

Wrath -

The fans outside of New England are angry. It is frustrating to be a fan of sports in other cities, and I do not fault the fans out there for that (but at least talk intelligently about the teams - don't just sit there and yell "they suck," it belittles you and the team you root for). The Red Sox wrapped up their second World Series title in four seasons, and look like they will be the team to beat in the AL East for at least the next couple of seasons.

The Patriots are in the middle of what could be a run at history, the Celtics are off to their best start since 1972, the Revolution is on the verge of a possible championship, the Bruins look like they might be able to contend, and Boston College is looking like a lock for a bowl game in spite of recent struggles.

There have been a lot of comparisons to New York and the Yankees, but let's face it - no city, not New York, not San Francisco, not Atlanta, not Dallas, has ever played host to such a serendipitous convergence of excellence from its sports franchises.

And that seems to have pissed off the rest of fan-nation.

C'est la vie.

One last note -

Am I the only person who sees the irony in the fact that three years ago the Ravens drafted a young quarterback in the sixth round named Derek Anderson, yes, the same Derek Anderson who has led the Browns to second place in the AFC North, and had a chance, in spite of a bad game, to maneuver the team to a tie for first against the Steelers last week, while the Ravens can't find a quarterback that can do jack. How does that happen with an "offensive genius" like Brian Billick? How does someone like that so grossly underestimate the talent at the team's keystone position?

I don't know how good Anderson is going to be, but let's face it, he's better than anything the Ravens have.