So there you are. You have a bead of sweat running down your forehead. You are scrambling in your mind with thoughts of who to call, what to say, consequences of this. An officer is taking your fingerprints and all the while a little voice in your head is repeating over and over, “stupid. stupid. stupid”.

Congrats. You just went to jail. There is no card that magically gets you out like when you were 7 years old, playing Monopoly and having no idea why that little booger-eating neighbor kid sitting next to you gets to be the car and you have to be the shoe. That “Get Out of Jail Free” card? Oh you’d sure love to have it right now. There’s a lot of bad things that can happen when you go to jail.

So the question then is this…Why do so many athletes continuously get arrested? You have DUI’s, wife-beating, fighting, shootings and all that ilk. Yet these athletes are still out there entertaining the fans who pay enough money that they should be able to avoid needing to commit crimes.

Go to your local jail. Ask some of the men inside there why they “allegedly” committed a crime, and I guarantee you none will have a shoe contract, an endorsement for a cell phone company, or one to sell you high definition televisions. No, these are guys who commit crimes because they are criminals. Why then, are other criminals allowed to do touchdown dances, homerun trots and hit a 3 with the buzzer sounding?

California has a 3 strikes law. I think the NBA has a 94 strike law. Once you get on that 93rd strike, your ass had better walk on eggshells, or you face a 3 game suspension…or something like that. About the 1147th strike, they start talking about a life-time ban. Who’d want that? I mean, do we really want to release a criminal from the NBA onto American society. Are we prepared for it? The National Guard is still in Iraq at this point.

I’m not saying all athletes are criminals. Just the ones who get caught. Seriously, how many times has Chris Henry been busted for DUI’s? Like 13? That’s supposedly 13 times out on the road behind the wheel of his car, inebriated. Imagine how many times he does it and DOESN’T get caught. Something’s can’t be changed, and I’m sorry Bengals, but after the 2nd and 3rd time, you really should have stepped up for your fans and done something about him. He was a disgrace to the team…most of whom it seems are already dealing with their own pending cases.

Where do fans draw the line? Pac-Man Jones is dealing with the headaches of shooting up a strip club. Trade him to Dallas. Former Cowboy’s star Nate Newton went to federal prison after trafficking 213 lbs. of marijuana. A few weeks later, he tries to show authorities he’s trying to become a better citizen by being caught only smuggling 175 lbs. We have players wrecking cars and leaving the scene, guys being tasered by the police in nightclubs. A few are bouncing their wives heads off the hood of cars, yet we keep advocating it by cheering for them.

I know I can’t wait for the day I take my son to his first ballgame, and recite off stats of the convicts and felons that makeup our teams daily lineup. I can explain to him how “time off for good behavior” helps pad a players career stats, and how the added security is there to protect the fans from the players these days. It didn’t always used to be like that, I will say. Then I will casually try to buy a beer from a vendor without fear of having a player come into the stands and mug me.