If it wasn’t for steroids, blood doping, and deflated footballs – plus a plethora of well-publicized misbehaviors from adultery to drug abuse to gambling – our sports heroes would still be our heroes.

In a distant past and far away galaxy, reporters would protect the reputation of a raging, self-destructive alcoholic like Yankee great, Mickey Mantle. (Those were his own words.)

The 60s and 70s brought a different brand of reporting that was a mix of a more robust and aggressive investigative journalism with a heaping dose of shock appeal. The “shock” part of that mix exploded first with the internet boom and then went from a hydrogen bomb to a nuclear bomb with the eruption of social media. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and a host of others are Barry-Bonds-level steroid injections for the TMZ-reveal-all world we live in.

The latest scandal to rock the world of sports is the revelation that the New England Patriots used under-inflated footballs in the AFC Championship game against the Indianapolis Colts, a game which they won, to reach Super Bowl XLIX in Glendale, Arizona, against the Seattle Seahawks on February 1, 2015. [Read more…]