Baseball season is almost here.

How those words used to fill me with anticipation. In case you hadn’t guessed it, I’m a baseball fan or I should say I was a baseball fan. It’s been harder and harder to get any enjoyment out of a game where the players think that they can get away with anything. Who do they think they are rock or movie stars that can flout the law whenever they feel like it? I’ll have to remember to do a post on my feeling about the later two groups later.

Meanwhile, what brought all this on you may be asking yourselves? Well, it was the current tell all book about steroid use in baseball. A book I might add that was probably written by a poor underpaid ghost writer. The credited author and his agent will be splitting the profits you can be sure of that fact.

Lest you think I’m just down on baseball the same statement could be made about basketball, hockey, or football. And I’m not just limiting my denunciation to the professional players but have to include the major college sports of football and basketball in that statement. Why should we the fans support drug use, murder and mayhem, or rape with our dollars?

I’ve done my own little effort to bring a solution to these problems by not watching broadcast games and not buying season passes to the satellite feeds for playoffs or regular season games. Nor do I attend games in person. I should put in a qualifier that I still enjoy the high school sporting events and minor league baseball. The minor leaguers are the only ones upholding the traditions of a game deeply rooted in the American way of life.

What can be done to correct the situation? I find that a good start was made when Senator McCain threatened government regulations if the players union didn’t make concessions to resolve the recent steroid scandal in baseball. You’ll notice that they reached an agreement mighty fast after that threat. In my own opinion, the best thing for baseball and the other professional sports is to break the stranglehold that the players unions, sports agents, and owners have on the games.

As for the “pro” sports at college lever, I’ve noticed that any number of the great universities and colleges in don’t have intercollegiate sports teams. I’m thinking here of Northwestern and Oral Roberts, but I’m sure that there are others. I have heard all of the arguments against dropping sports, but most of them sound facetious to me at best. As an alumni myself, I don’t give money to my alma mater’s sports programs or to the general university fund. Instead, when I give money it is to a specific program like the library or a particular department. I can only encourage others to follow my example. Starving them out is the only way to end the abuses at a college level.

Just my two cents worth of advice, but something has to be done and waiting for the situation to correct itself over time is not a solution. Think about it and you’ll see I’m right.