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.