By frankie

Today Frankie wants to talk about something that he feels pretty strongly about. When Frankie was a child he used to go to baseball games with his dad. He’d get a hotdog and some ice cream his dad would get a beer and a dog as well. It was special day off for his dad. Chances are it was sunny, you are watching your favorite team play, and you could smell the green grass and hope you catch a baseball in the stands.

In “Field of Dreams” Costner had 2 lines, one was “it’s better than good, it’s perfect,” another was “Is this Heaven?” and his response was “No it’s Iowa”, and Joe Jackson responded “I could’ve sworn this was Heaven.”

The point I’m going to make that I haven’t gotten to yet is that Sports can be this way. They are an escape from reality. Another line in that movie was “it reminds people of what was good in the world and can be again.” Sports is escapism. A chance to forget about your troubles for a few hours and relax and bond with your family and friends and dream about the future and think about the past history of the game.

Now I can get to my main point of this article. When did it become so important for the NFL to instantly suspend a player like Ray Rice because of what he did off the field and was forgiven by society? Also after Peterson was reinstated by the Vikes, pending his day in court the “politically correct police” went nuts and said he shouldn’t play as they did with Rice. The leader of the women’s movement has called for Goodell to resign because she didn’t like his suspension of Rice not being strict enough. The Governor of Minnesota has called for Peterson to not play. Donald Sterling says something stupid to his girlfriend in private and he loses his billion dollar sports business. Has everyone lost their minds?

The point is let’s keep politics out of sports and turn it back to the way it was in Field of Dreams. Let’s stop letting the bigger issues creep into the games that we love. We have legal systems and courts for these matters. Let’s turn back the clock to the way it was in Field of Dreams when James Earl Jones said “They will feel that they’ve been dipped in magic waters”, instead of worrying about the bigger issues on the playing fields. Let’s the legal system judge that and let the games be pure again.

“People will come Ray, Yes they most definitely will come,” but only if you keep politics out of Sports. Frankie signing off here until next week, but not before calling up America’s Bookie and putting some money on Tampa +6.5 over Atlanta tonight. Enjoy the game, grab a beer and watch it with your kid and escape from reality for a few minutes. I promise you all of your problems will still be waiting for you when you get up the next morning.