Crying Foul

There is no crying in baseball. What about in football? This endless font of machismo certainly wouldn't allow such displays. Or maybe it would. Highly trained and conditioned athletes, but human beings all. That's one of the reasons why the National Football League has all these rules and codes of conduct to keep those emotions and behaviors in line. There is a certain standard we must all maintain. Drug testing? You bet. That still won't necessarily keep you from making bad choices. The practice of giving young men large sums of money to play a game doesn't ensure their adherence to any sort of role model-type existence. I find it easy enough to imagine that if someone told me what I needed to do in order to keep my three hundred thousand dollar a year job was to avoid getting caught with my face in a pile of cocaine or waving my AK-47 around the neighborhood, I would probably exercise a little restraint. Then again, if I had a lifestyle that was fueled by that much money, the league's minimum salary, I might not be as chill as I imagined.
That's why there are rules. Like the one that Commissioner Roger Goodell recently updated. Now, a player can be suspended from participating in their high-paying NFL gig for six games for violations regarding assault, battery, domestic violence or sexual assault involving physical force ban without pay and a second offense will bring a minimum one-year bounce from the league. That all comes in this flurry of perspective brought on by the contrast between the four games that Bronco's kicker Matt Prater was asked to sit out for having "a few beers" at home and the two games that Raven's running back Ray Lewis got for knocking out his wife. 
Okay, it's apples and oranges. One more bruised than the other, but it sure does make it a little confusing to understand just what sort of behavior will be tolerated by our superstar athletes. It should also be noted that Ray Rice won't be grandfathered in by this new, more socially conscious rule. He will be back a full two weeks before that drunken sot of a kicker gets on the field again. There are those who will insist that all of this fuss is just that: fuss. The "No Fun League" is out to keep us all from enjoying all that America's Game has to offer. They won't even let Jimmy Graham dunk the ball over the goalpost anymore. Maybe that makes more sense since it was conduct on the field.
Off the field? The contrast continues: the sports world gave that collective shrug when Ray Rice showed his attentions/intentions to his fiancee. This same group got all worked up when Michael Sam kissed his boyfriend after he was drafted by the St. Louis Rams. With the season about to start, Sam has been cut by his team. He's looking for work. Rice will be back to work for his team in just a couple of weeks. The Hopi might call it Koyaanisqatsi. There is no crying in Koyaanisqatsi.