DEPRESSING SPORTS UPDATE

Major League Baseball is once more demonstrating a death wish. After alienating fans with the 1994 strike, baseball was able to woo back the disaffected with the McGwire/Sosa home run race, the emergence of new, exciting stars like A-Rod and Ichiro, and last year's spectacular World Series. Now, it is once more heading towards a labor conflict, featuring the absurdity of millionares ballplayers on strike. In the shadow of this looming threat comes the All-Star Game farce. There's a simple solution, here, folks - alter the substitution rules. Pitchers were pulled to give others a chance to play, not because they were tired. If extra innings happens, let somebody who only threw an inning or two come back in the game. Heck, no body watches the All-Star Game to watch managers match wits with strategy - let the players play.

In worse news, it looks like Allen Iverson is about to be arrested for armed assault. You would think that after the incident in Virginia a number of summers ago, he would have realized the danger of having an illegal gun. If the allegations are true, I am truly saddened. Iverson looked like he had turned a corner and left his troubled past behind him. He looked like he was going to make it. The human dimension of this tragedy could wind up dwarfing the major blow that such an arrest will deal to the reeling 76ers.

Aren't sports supposed to a break from depressing news. Oy.