Before the Farrelly Brothers put Brett Favre in Something About Mary — but before casting Boston Bruins star Cam Neeley in Dumb and Dumber — they cast Roger Clemens in Kingpin. I know this because I brought one of my sons in from our pitching session to watch the supremely underrated sports flick yesterday and— Surprise! — there he was, playing a minor heavy called Skidmark. Roger’s range wasn’t so awesome in 1996, and last week showed that he’s not much better an actor.

The boy and I laughed at his performance. It’s important not to be too serious. Just a little bit serious. Occasionally. I’m serious enough to know sports are important in that —when not functioning as the masses’ opiate —  they teach us tangible lessons about being stronger, better. Just like in Kingpin. And I’m frivolous to have loved the Springer-ish aspect of Clemens descent into history’s dustbin. But even before time the cameras and mics were turned off, I had moved on to that Beltway clusterfuck that was taking place in another, less media-drenched room on Capital Hill.

Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter’s same-day meeting with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has been ridiculed far and wide, but that’s mostly because most of the networks have their hands in the pro football pie. Spygate, timed by Goodell to fall right in the Clemens sideshow scandale, is also profoundly misunderstood. Misunderestimated, if you will. Let’s see what I can do to help the event’s significance not be misremembered.

“There was confirmation that there has been taping since 2000, when Coach [Bill] Belichick took over,” Specter said after the hearing.

Taping opponents signals from the very start of what’s arguably our time's greatest sports dynasty? Wowzer times Seven! That’s major.

Scandal is so heavy that we run the risk of going numb to it. But these are serious matters. Multi-billion dollar businesses are being unprecedentedly dogged by issues both seriously ethical and mildly technical. The biggest of these leagues are built on tax breaks that have allowed them to dominate the marketplace. Sport is objectively that much of a benefit to society. And yet literally month after month there’s some shady behavior that makes you wonder if you’re watching a gussied up version of pro wrestling. DeArlen Specter has earned my admiration for pursuing his line of inquiry.

Listen, after pitching and Kingpin I took in most of the P.R. fete that was the NBA All-Star weekend, loving a bunch of it. (Except that Superman did not actually dunk!) Never though did I get a sense that the amped up projection of community weren’t designed to wash the words “Tim Donaghy” from our critical faculties.

In their purest sense, the American sports league morality tales fill me with joy, but I’ll believe the actual stories when Marion Jones can walk away from her problems as easily as Paul Lo Duca.

Donnell Alexander is the MOLI View's contributing editor for Sports & Fitness. He posts Mondays and Thursdays.