Coming Up With My Sports Wish List

This column was originally published in The Carroll News on December 10, 2009.

‘Tis the season for wish lists, so I composed my own sports wish list – things that would make my life as a fan so much better.

First and foremost, I wish we had a playoff system in place for college football.

The BCS dodged a major bullet on Saturday when Texas knocked off Nebraska in the final seconds to clinch a spot in the national title game.

Are Alabama and Texas the two best teams? Tough to say. Boise State, Cincinnati and TCU beat everyone on their schedule. Shouldn’t they at least get a chance to win a championship?

I want to see, on the field, who the best team really is. Let’s play it out and discover the answer once and for all.

Staying in the college ranks, I wish basketball players had to stay for three years – like they do in football – before entering the NBA.

There’s nothing quite like college basketball and, in my opinion, it would only get better if players stuck around for a few more years. People are going to tune in every March regardless, but I think the tournament would have an extra spark with established superstars playing.

In baseball, I wish the steroid users would just go away. As fans, we can’t help but wonder whether guys like Albert Pujols and Ryan Howard are using performance enhancers, or if they really are this good.

I hope baseball can soon test players for every drug under the sun and punish users severely. I mean a lifetime ban – that severely. When fans are paying such high prices to attend games, they deserve to know whether or not the product they are seeing is genuine, or a result of some work done in a lab.

While we are on the topic, I wouldn’t mind seeing that 2003 list of steroid users in Major League Baseball.

Some of the names have leaked, but I would love to see who else is on the list. I’m very curious to see if some of my childhood heroes are on there.

I wish that we heard more about the “good guys” in sports. For all the guys that get D.U.I.’s and hit their live-in girlfriends, there have to be a few that do things the right way. Let’s give them some ink too.

Finally, I hope that 2010 is a better sports year than 2009 was. There weren’t too many memorable moments from this year, but luckily, there is always next year.