HAVE YOU GOT CHEATING ON YOUR MIND??

Rick Ankiel?
Troy Glaus?
Jay Gibbons?
Bill Belichick?

Cheating, in the context of a game or sport, is "violating accepted standards or rules". Period, it should be simple enough to understand.

Interesting how now that the feel-good story of major league baseball this season and now the genius coach of the NFL have fallen into the abyss of cheating, the Court of Public Opinion is issuing some softer rulings on the subject.

The same guys who come down hard on baseball have just gone flaccid now that football is placed under the moral microscope.

It's gamesmanship. Mangini is a snitch. He violated the "code". The same "code" Canseco was lauded for violating. The code being another way of saying "accepted standards or rules" whether they are written or unwritten.

We don't really know if what Ankiel was doing to rehab a pitching injury helped him as a hitter.

The Pats Super Bowls aren't tarnished one bit.

Yeah, because then we have to start rethinking the budding legend that is Tom Brady. Does his star shine as bright with one or two Super Bowls erased from his resume. Or asterisked. Not saying Brady cheated, but he and his team clearly benefited from said cheating. And we don't want to knock down the legend that is Tom Brady, yet now do we?

It's good to see the Court of Public Opinion put away the hanging noose and start thinking a little more liberally. Would the opinions expressed about Belichick be the same if the coach under the gun were Dennis Green or Ray Rhodes?

As far as the baseball side, regarding this recent tendency to explain away HGH use as some sort of recovery from injury, some modern form of therapy--be advised that this is not recommended by any therapeutic modalities I'm aware of, not recommended by any reputable surgeons that I'm aware of, and you certainly would not need a years supply anyway when typical therapy sessions to recover from injury or surgery do not last more than six to eight weeks in most cases. Certainly not in the cases cited above.

How long will it be before baseball does something about both the Cardinals and Orioles organizations? Both seem to have been in the middle of too many of these bad-news stories regarding steroid-HGH-alcohol abuse. Maybe some sort of NCAA-style, lack of institutional control penalty might be in order. Especially for the Cardinals, who seem to be very belligerent in defense of their behavior (see LaRussa and GM Walt Jocketty), which only increases their level of culpability in my mind.

I have to wonder if the Patriots have been doing this as well as some of the other nefarious methods they've been accused of doing to win games lately, one has to wonder if the the number of Super Bowl rings for Tom Brady (3) vs. Peyton Manning (1)
could conceivably be reversed if they were playing on a "level playing field".

And who would be considered more of a coaching "genius" if the results of past Colts-Patriots matchups leading up to a couple of Super Bowls were reversed. Wouldn't Tony Dungy be the "genius", possibly one of the greatest coaches of all-time?