Well here you go – a few of ESPN.com’s featured headlines:

Pacman accused of punching woman at nightclub
Congress asks if Tejada lied in ‘05
WVU to investigate missing files

My greatest fear is that our games, our hobbies, our passions will become media-saturated soap operas. Maybe it’s my refusal to accept this world in which we live, where the media paints our world and culture as negative. But when I go to ESPN.com, I don’t want to see these stories. I understand that the folks at the Associated Press and other media outlets have a job to report the news, but I’d rather not see it. I want to believe that our games are pure and that our athletes are role models. I want to be uplifted by success stories. I want to be told the untold story, one that takes creativity and heart to create.

If I wanted to watch ‘Days of Our Lives,’ I would … but not in some weird sports version. If I wanted to hear about people’s faults all day long, I’d turn the television to CNN. That’s why I thought we were fans in the first place – because sports, at the most grassroots level, are supposed to be pure.

Pure does not equate to woman-beating or lying.

I could care less. Honestly.

According to ESPN, Senator George Mitchell tried to contact Clemens twice before his infamous report. Guilty, innocent, kind of guilty and not really innocent – again, what does it matter?

Sure, if you’re Clemens you get a little ticked. No problems there. But why, why, do we, as fans and supporters of this beautiful game, insist on following such a pointless case. Why do we care about Clemens’ potential involvement? You can’t use the “I feel cheated as a fan” argument any longer; you have to be brain dead if you believe that steroid use hasn’t been rampant over the course of the last century. Personal trainers were allowed, and continue to be allowed to, enter the clubhouse at their own will. That’s part of the problem.

As a society, we have a very hard time looking to the future and forgetting about the past. Mitchell’s report did nothing else but verify what we already knew – that yes, Major League players have (while some haven’t) used performance-enhancing drugs. We have the information; now let’s figure out a plan. Keep the trainers out of the clubhouse. Promote an anti-doping regulatory agency to monitor baseball, while developing an even-stricter punishment. We must escape the past by using Mitchell’s information as encouragement to do.

I was reading the paper form of USA Today’s Spring Training Guide today. Finally, I thought, something promising, something to look forward to, something to imagine as I walked into sub-zero Minnesota weather. And then I turned the page, and I saw Clemens’ uncomfortable smirk, seated by his lawyer. He wasn’t wearing a Yankees uniform, but rather a blue button-down shirt. For a brief moment, until I saw that image, I was satisfied.

Spring Training is a time of renewal. It is a time for newfound stars to make a dazzling play across the could-not-be-greener grass, and then make a roster. That moment will be a special time because those players, that next generation have the task of restoring our game to what made it our game in the first place.

“Testify” is not etched beside the graves of Babe Ruth, Jackie Robinson or Ted Williams, and no way did they manufacture baseball to be dueled out in a courtroom.