WHICH LEAGUE IS IN MORE TROUBLE?

by Davey, Blown Coverage

WCK informed us yesterday that Major League Baseball has suspended Mike Winters for the remainder of the season and he definitely deserves it in my opinion. Winters talked crap to Milton Bradley, a player with a short fuse to begin with, and the result is an ACL tear for Milton after his manager horse-collared him while trying to hold him back during the argument.

So, this has made me think. Which of the pro leagues have more to deal with right now??

Let's start with MLB. It's been a season filled with milestones and records being broken and when one of those records is the grand daddy of them all, you'd think that everything is rainbows and puppies. But sadly, that's not the case...

Barry Bonds holds the all-time homerun record but we all know the big steroid cloud that hangs over it. It has come so far that the record breaking ball will be getting an asterisk branded on it so that no one ever forgets Barry Bonds and the controversy surrounding his feat.

Even when "good guys" like Jim Thome reach 500 career homeruns, there's talk about it not meaning so much because of the "steriod era" we are in. Yes, that's what Bud Selig has to deal with, along with the ongoing steroid investigations and the fact that mostly every baseball fan has a deeply rooted hate for him. Oh, and let's not forget that little salary cap issue where the difference between the Yankees and Devil Rays is vomit inducing....

The NFL certainly has a lot of things going for it now. It's by far the most popular of the major sports and that popularity just seems to keep growing. The game between the Dolphins and the Giants in London this season will only add to the NFL's popularity outside of America. There's a salary cap, there's parity and with the draft set up the way it is, the bad teams also have great chance at improvement.

Speaking of which, the draft is insanely huge and has almost become a national holiday. The defending champs are led by a man who many admire (Tony Dungy) and the quarterback might just be the most marketable guy in the entire league. Even the previous champs have been teams that have had that certain "good image" and I'm speaking of course about Brady and his Pats and the Steelers led by Bettis and Cowher.

But there have also been big issues over here. Roger Goodell has taken over the Commish and let's just say that he's been a busy man. Chris Henry, Odell Thurman, Tank Johnson, Pacman Jones, Jared Allen, Fred Evans, A.J. Nicholson and Frostee Rucker, just to name a few, have made headlines for the wrong reasons. There have been fines and suspensions all over the place and none have been bigger than the Mike Vick saga. One of the league's biggest stars, bringing it the biggest black eye.

And if crime and bad behaviour wasn't enough, the Commish also had to deal with cheating. Cheating from the league's most successful franchise this decade. A franchise with the most respected owner, the golden boy quarterback and the genius coach. Yeah, I just imagine Goodell sitting in a rocking chair every night, holding on tight to a shotgun as he applies lipstick to himself while muttering jibberish.

Finally, it brings me to the NBA. The one thing that the NBA has going for it is that basketball is becoming a very global game. Actually, it already is a global game but it's growing with every passing day and the fact that Team USA isn't a lock to win every game anymore just proves that point.

David Stern is probably liked more than Goodell and Selig, the NBA draft garners significant attention (more than baseball's draft for sure). There's a salary cap, just like the NFL, so teams that don't spend wisely end up paying the price. The defending champs are the prototypical "pro-team" that don't get into trouble and just take care of business and having an owner like Mark Cuban on board only helps things in my opninion (Stern might disagree here).

The league has a new king (LeBron) and it also showcases some of the best athletic talent in the world on a nightly basis. Think of guys like Kobe, McGrady, Amare Stoudemire, Wade, Dwight Howard, Nowitzki, Garnett and in the near future we can probably add Kevin Durant to that list.

And yes, here's where I start mentioning the things that give Commish Stern a headache. There was the huge Tim Donaghy scandal and then the Joey Crawford incident where he challenged the league's ultimate good guy (Tim Duncan) to fisticuffs. There's talk about "tanking", where teams teams suck on purpose to help their lottery chances and now the league loses a very big attraction (Greg Oden) for the entire season.

There have also been behavioral stuff for Stern to deal with. Kobe Bryant and his incident in Denver, the entire Trailblazers team, Isiah and Starbury in New York and let's not forget about Ron Artest in Detroit, something the league is still trying to get over I think.

So yeah, who's in more trouble? I'd personally go with MLB because of the entire steroid scandal, the budget differences and also the fact that a team like Florida sometimes draws about 2000 people for a home game.

Let's have your suggestions in the comments.

*Note : I didn't even mention the NHL and MLS and I think you can imagine why.