Um, I can bring some sports-related outrage that has nothing to do with anything violent or unethical....

Come ON, Mariners, what is WRONG with you? Especially you, Miguel Batista, whom I'd previously considered among the more reliable of our pitchers not named Felix Hernandez! Giving up a grand slam in the first INNING?! Do the words "pennant race" and "Damn Yankees breathing down our necks for the wild card" have no MEANING to you?

I mean, geez. Remember that your team is playing early halfway across the country, turn on gamecast and discover you're down 5-0 already?! In the FIRST?! Come on, Mariners! You want to be contenders, start PLAYING like it already.

(Ouch. Just checked gamecast again and it's 7-0. Oh, the pain...)

The NFL has the draft though, which is different than straight out recruiting, and if you have a lower number, or have traded numbers, you're looking to fill in skills gaps and for players who have potential to grow.

I'm so disconnected from the business of football that I wasn't even thinking about the draft. That's a good point...but given the jockeying and predictions I hear about that contribute to the 'science' of the draft, how does that make the charge of prevalent thuggish behavior closer to racism?

I'm sincerely not trying to be inflammatory. Not in the least. I'm just curious because the engineering of the draft makes it seem no more random than straight recruiting to me...admittedly someone who knows next to nothing about it.

Come ON, Mariners, what is WRONG with you? Especially you, Miguel Batista, whom I'd previously considered among the more reliable of our pitchers not named Felix Hernandez! Giving up a grand slam in the first INNING?! Do the words "pennant race" and "Damn Yankees breathing down our necks for the wild card" have no MEANING to you?

I imagine this will be me come next month. BTW. WHY does our first game have to be against the Colts? Does that seem right to you?

Also, I hope it's clear, I don't mean to defend that kind of behavior in the NFL-or anywhere-at all. I just didn't like that last statement. I'd also like to point out that there are also some really cool cats in the NFL who really do try to make their adopted homes a better place.

The draft pulls from a specific group of people, right? Those people are recruited. If not into the pros at least into college ball. Are the people who are doing nefarious things in the pros people who were squeaky clean in high school? Or are they repeating past behaviors only writ large due to more money?

I think the NFL needs to not merely not encourage, but activel DIScourage thuggish behavior. I hate to sound like a fifty year old film strip, but there is something to be said for actively embracing the gentlman athlete and sportsmanship and, well, chivalry.

I've sometimes tried to look at football players vs. hockey players. Hockey is also a contact sport fraught with violent behavior (even encouraged on the ice). But the violence is (usually) controlled and allowed to play out during the sport, Marty McSorley notwithstanding.

Using anecdotal evidence, I see more NFL players misbehaving off the field than I see hockey players misbehaving off the ice.

Is the fighting that is accepted in hockey a good way to get that agression out without watching it play out outside of the arena?

That's a good point...but given the jockeying and predictions I hear about that contribute to the 'science' of the draft, how does that make the charge of prevalent thuggish behavior closer to racism?

The charge wasn't that there was prevalent thuggish behavior, but that the people the NFL hires are predisposed to be thugs. It's a subtle, but I think important difference.

The jockeying and predictions are, like I said, filling in gaps, looking for strengths and weaknesses. It doesn't always mean the biggest, baddest guy. Ask Marcus Colston.

Not inflammatory at all. Not to worry.

Interesting Hockey v. Football.

Random thoughts that might have some bearing on the disparity:

Hockey isn't as huge an industry in the US

To my understanding, hitting opponents is more incidental than strategic (though I could be wrong)

They're a bunch of pussy Canadians

looking for strengths and weaknesses. It doesn't always mean the biggest, baddest guy.

Of course this is true, and something I wasn't thinking about being all het up about dog fighting. Which, sadly, might prove your point.

It isn't the biggest, baddest guy who is hired to because he is fast or can keep the ball in his hands, or who can kick it the farthest.

there is something to be said for actively embracing the gentlman athlete and sportsmanship and, well, chivalry

Is there money in it?

Also, I think one reason you might seem more NFL off-field hijinx is because NFL gets more coverage--which makes the players more famous, and more rich. Scumbuckets are more likely to get the opportunity to indulge themselves, and more likely to get caught/covered.

there is something to be said for actively embracing the gentlman athlete and sportsmanship and, well, chivalry

Is there money in it?

A truism that makes me want to say...Kill me now.