Michael Vick has made negative headlines, again, this week. Before that it was Marion Jones coming with the extraordinarily bad news. Then it was Isiah Thomas. Before that, I believe the villain du jour was a cat named O.J. Simpson. Perhaps you’ve heard of him. And before that, baseball was the only game in town. And despite having its lowest African-American participation since Negro Leaguers swung bats, no player in that sport was a bigger bad guy than the infamous, recently fired slugger with the San Francisco Giants.

Wowser. It’s only the start of 2007’s fourth quarter, but let’s go out on a limb. What the great Paul Mooney would call “a bad nigga year” seems to have befallen us, at least in sport.

Oh, I forgot. We don’t say “bad nigga year” no more. We just have ’em.

(Funny thing about not saying the n-word anymore: It’s all admirable and whatnot that certain leadership figures are washing the collective community’s mouth out with soap. But what are they gonna do about the Latinos? Having worked a bit of Southern California construction and taken many 4:20 p.m. rides on the backs of MTA busses, I can tell you that them cats aren’t close to embargoing that language. They’re embracing it. The weather forecast seems to be calling for that particular umbrella.)

If I may, just this once, completely break character and come with the unfettered realness, let me say that what’s even more disconcerting than the famous jocks having bad years in crime are the ones who are regularly assailed for saying the wrong thing in the wrong tone at the wrong time. Travis Johnson. Terrell Owens. Randy Moss. Gary Sheffield. Kobe Bryant. Even non-controversial figures like C.C. Sabathia and Donovan McNabb have drawn criticism for making statements that seemed unduly challenging to the sports establishment. There’s no getting away from it: The misdeeds of African-American athletes are thrown into a higher relief than than their white and Latino counterparts.

Don’t get me wrong, my people have spent a disproportionate hunk of the year screwing up, majorly. But some astounding double standards are putting in double time.

My pet inequity of the moment has Tony LaRussa being considered a top candidate for baseball’s marquis gig, manager of the New York Yankees. LaRussa, an undeniably remarkable strategist, made his bones on the Oakland A’s of Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire. He’s claimed no knowledge of steroid abuse, which is fine. I can’t help but wonder, however, if denials from Marion Jones’ teammates will resonate with the same success.

In the year after leading the Cardinals to the World Series title, LaRussa started off by being hit with a DUI, then presided over a clubhouse so awash in alcohol that a pitcher—commuting home in the middle of the afternoon — drove himself to death on his way home from work. The manager concluded the 2007 campaign by watching the storybook season of Rick Ankiel turn (with a not-so-astounding hush) into disappointing fraud. All of this in addition to having a shitty season standings-wise. Somebody give that white man a raise and greater stature!

I know some of y’all think I’m paranoid and excuse making and blah blah blah. But there’s a pattern here. Tom Brady has a kid out of wedlock and while he’s with another woman, it’s the stuff of InTouch. Some rich black jock gets his freak on and it’s an SI expose.

I’m glad Tim Donaghy isn’t black. There might not even be an NBA anymore. And maybe Roger Clemens’ career improvement after 1996 didn’t merit a game of Shadows, but couldn’t you guys in the sporting press at least whispered a little louder? A little sooner? Don’t get me started again on New England’s finest, Bill Belichick and Charlie Weiss. No, really. Don’t. If they keep winning all of their recent problems can be swept beneath the Never Happened quadrant of sport’s metaphoric rug.

And I'm just too tired. Don’t think I’m a hater. That’s not what I feel. It’s exhaustion born of envy, at this point of the BNY. On a local level, I’m going through it, albeit in a drowsy real world sense. Floyd Landis is my psychic crutch.

And, for reals, I sometimes wonder if we’re just in over our heads with this whole Western Civilization bit. If I’m lucky enough, on those occasions I enter an office building or a post office and understand that it’s a mixed bag, actually. Even most jocks are pretty okay, until the money and the press come into play.

Which brings me back to Vick. Listen: I’m a big fan of dogs. They’re right up their with Mom, my kids and fried apple pie. Some dogs I may not have loved on a personal level, but I certainly wouldn’t execute any. Not a one. That doesn’t keep me from thinking that 85 million people in Vietnam, had they access to American sports media, would be wonder why Michael Vick’s being treated as he is. Not that I condone body-slamming puppies. (I’m a public radio supporter, for Christ's sake.) It’s just that, as violating Western mores go, female circumcision bugs me a lot more. I think Michael Vick is being jobbed.

Paul Mooney and a whole gang o’ Mexicans are undoubtedly in agreement.