ESP(I)N: A-Rod, Lance, and More
The day started like any other. The alarm rang, solidifying how badly I hate the sound of crisp ocean waves crashing against the shore at 5:40 AM, and I shook my fist at nothing in particular and pondered why God hasn't been returning the messages I keep leaving him on his voicemail about the way these days keep going. More usual things happened. Like I skipped showering, half heartedly brushed my teeth, and grabbed something called "Rip It" from my fridge that promised me not to die within the next few hours from sleep deprivation. Because a product with Richard Hamilton on the can inspires me to believe them.
It didn't change when I got in the car and forked my antenna up so it'd stay up for my drive (at a stop sign, and I do this daily) and allow me enough reception to swear and make anti-Semetic jokes at Mike 
Greenberg for 50 minutes. Straight. And it definetly felt like any other morning when topic #1 was Alex Rodriguez. Granted, A-Rod did something worth talking about, what with 600 home runs. But it's ESPN, so the topic wasn't about how great of a feat that was, rather about how "no one cares." Then, in true ESPN form, they found no quotes from anyone other than ESPN employees displaying this and relating it to steroids. Because that's contractually 50% of what ESPN can talk about, steroids and PED's. On and on they went about how it didn't matter. How he was tainted because of roids. How everyone has turned a deaf ear to a once hallowed number in all of sports. How he won't get in the Hall. Roids. Needles. Bonds. Puke.
Afterwhile, there were a few more topics, then something that caught me off guard. Lance Armstrong. With steroids. In the Tour De France. Greenberg pulled the story from the card box ala Clue. And Professor Dumb quickly swept it under the rug with about 45 seconds of discussion. By this time, I was at work. Which is approximately where I grab my phone, and put my ESPN MVP on to read the days news, because I can't get it with 50 minutes about how Greenberg hates spending money and Golic used to play for the Eagles as if we didn't know. Not a single mention of Lance. Five articles about A-Rod, and how much he sucks at life, but nothing about Lance.
Lance Armstrong is probably the most beloved athlete in recent memory in the US. He has more Sportsman of the Year awards than Isiah Rider has nights in jail. He's an icon to people who don't even like sports, and hell, I don't even understa,nd how anyone with testicles can ride a bike. Comfort issues. We don't care about Lance so much because he can beat Igor Nuthugher from Germany. He beat something the human race as a whole is getting its ass kicked by like it's Lakers-Bobcats. Cancer. And for that, he's untouchable. Nevermind he cheated on his wife and left his family for that harlet Sheryl Crow and that Tiger Woods cheated on his and can't even piss without someone new pulling sponsorships from him. It's LANCE. He makes yellow bracelets!
This isn't to drag Armstrong through the mud. It's to show the great parallel in America's only sports media outlet of consequence. This being a week after the network yanked a story about Lebron cheating on the mother of his kids in a hot tub with Chris Paul and some call girls. Well, not WITH Chris Paul, because that would be wierd. But with girls while Paul was there. Wait...no, I can't make this sound good. But Lebron is in bed with ESPN. He calls them when he wants free air time. Because all their reporters have it in their contracts to refer to the ringless one as "the best in the game" when he clearly isn't. So he throws them a few bones for hyping him up. In return, they promise to never, ever say anything bad about him, lest he take Jim Gray to Fox Sports Net, which 8 people have access to.
But to run two major "steroids" cases involving two of the top 10 most high profile athletes in this country within the same hour, spend about a minute talking about the more revered one and about 30 of those minutes talking about the pariah shows how pathetically slanted ESPN is. Get in bed with them, they'll never tell your wife. Even though it'd be best to, because ESPN clearly has herpes. People don't give a damn about Alex and 600 not because of steroids. It's because by and large, no one cares about baseball anymore on a widespread scale. When Griffey bombed 600 in Miami, no one cared about that either. And even athiests, rapists, and Kanye West like him, and they hate everything. We've become a society that, for the under 30 crowd that ESPN panders to, likes visual sports. Not soccer, not baseball. People don't take off work to have their buddies over, force their wives to make snacks, and drink 60 beers because Marlins-Mets is on Sunday. Aside from the more middle aged crowd, baseball is not popular anymore. The World Series ratings hold firm sometimes depending on participants, but regular season games and the All Star game are boring people to virtual tears.
It's not about roids, ESPN. It's about getting your dignity back. Quit making up stories, then forcing it as "what everyone's thinking." Report the news, don't make it, and choose who to sledge hammer it with. Alex, sure, didn't beat cancer. He too cheated on his wife (with Michael Strahan...I mean Louis Oosthuizen...I mean Madonna). But it's fun to hate Alex, and it's taboo to hate Lance. The issue isn't baseball or cycling, Lebron James or Felix the cat. It's accountability. And ESPN lacks it. If need be, I can churn out weekly examples of ESPN hiding information, slanting stories, and abusing certain athletes over others. The point is, on a rather nondescript day, two of sports most talked about names were under the scope for the same problem. One got drilled. The other got off scot free. It'd be nice if ESPN got back to their roots. Problem is, it's been so long I don't know if anyone there even remembers what the hell they were about in the first place.