Whining athletes don't fool the fans

Enough with the excuses.
Every time an athlete gets into trouble, he or she finds some way to push the blame off on somebody else.
Rafael Palmeiro is holding tight to his claim that a B-12 shot gave him steroids. Some Minnesota Vikings are irked people are bringing up their "Boys Gone Wild" boat cruise. Terrell Owens acts like a brat for six months then is shocked, just shocked, when the Philadelphia Eagles get sick of it.
Well we're sick of it, too. The whining. The crying foul. The race to sidestep blame. Those incredulous looks of "Who, me?" These are adults we're talking about here, and while calling them grown-ups might sometimes be a stretch, they're old enough to start taking responsibility.
Most decent sorts,setting good example
Now this isn't to say all athletes need their moral compasses readjusted. Most are decent sorts, and many do charitable works that should be an example to all. Cubs pitcher Kerry Wood is hosting a bowling tournament that last year raised more than $400,000 for a Chicago children's hospital.
But good deeds like that get lost when there are athletes who act like knuckleheads, then weasel their way out of accountability. It's safe to say no one was staking out Wood's house, a la Camp T.O., to hear about his tournament.
Palmeiro finally made his first detailed public comments this week since getting busted for steroids, and they were about as enlightening as those "mystery supplement" claims everyone else trots out.
Palmeiro continued to insist he never intentionally took steroids -- he said this in a statement, so there's no way to know if he was shaking his finger or not -- and suggested it was a contaminated shot of vitamin B-12 that caused him to test positive for stanozolol.
Response of mostone of incredulity
Big surprise. Of the 12 players punished by baseball this year for steroids, almost all expressed varying degrees of shock, disbelief and alternate explanations for how the drugs found their way into their systems. Only Matt Lawton had the guts to own up to it.
With Palmeiro's vitamin vial long gone, we'll never know the truth.
But Dr. Gary Wadler, a member of the World Anti-Doping Agency's medical research committee, said he'd never heard of B-12 being used as an explanation for doping. And the union lawyer who represented Palmeiro during his arbitration hearing didn't sound so sure, either.
Congress announced Thursday it wouldn't charge Palmeiro with perjury, but it didn't clear the slugger.
Vikings take exceptionto reporter's action
Some of the Vikings tried to organize a boycott of a local TV station last week after a reporter, acting on a tip, dug through a dumpster at a construction site and found garbage belonging to offensive tackle Bryant McKinnie. Among the debris was a list of female names and incoming flight times, handwritten on Vikings stationery.
McKinnie said the garbage was from a party at his house, not the cruise that ended with allegations of sexual misconduct. The Vikings cried foul, calling the digging an invasion of privacy, and they make a valid point. But maybe if they'd worked up similar outrage at other problems in recent years, they wouldn't be in this mess.
Despite Owens' attempts to spin it, T.O. has no one to blame but himself for his early offseason. He started this tiff when he asked for a new contract, saying the seven-year, $49 million deal didn't reflect his stature in the game. Never mind that it was his Sharpie on the deal a year earlier.
Don't like your contract? Don't sign it. But if you do, don't come back a few months later complaining about it.
Owens then proceeded to take aim at just about everybody on the Eagles, directing most of his barbs at Donovan McNabb.
Pushes Eagles' envelope,then offers apology
Not until the Eagles said they'd had enough did Owens make a real apology.
Look, we're all partly to blame for this culture of no consequence. Kids with athletic promise are fawned over and given special treatment from the time they can dribble or hit a blazing backhand. After years of being told how wonderful they are, it shouldn't come as any great shock when they believe it.
But part of being an adult is realizing that, no matter what, you are the one responsible for your actions. And no one, athletes included, is exempt.
XNancy Armour is a columnist for the The Associated Press.
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