Soft Pretzel Logic

Instead of feeling a sense of closure, I fear that we'll be fooled again this year in Beijing -- or maybe even at the Penn Relays.

NOTE: There is a brand-new Crunchy Numbers post BELOW this post on the blog's main page. I back-dated Crunchy Numbers so that it would leave this post at the top, which is why you'll see it if you go to the front page of Philly.com right now. But please scroll down for your weekly stats fix and let me know what you think. There are some pretty dramatic changes from last time.

Marion Jones at the 2004 Penn relays (Inquirer file photo)

We interrupt the college basketball stuff to remind you that the Penn Relays are also a big part of this blog, and as such, it is notable that Marion Jones just got sentenced to six months in prison for committing perjury.

I am sure that one of the main themes that will come along today will be that the sentence brings some form of closure to this story, similar to what the Mitchell Report was supposed to do for steroids in baseball.

For example, here's a statement on the news from USA Track and Field President Bill Roe and CEO Craig Masback:

"Today's sentencing concludes a sad series of events. The revelation that one of the sport's biggest stars took performance-enhancing drugs and repeatedly lied about it, in addition to being a party to fraud, has no silver lining. But, it is a vivid morality play that graphically illustrates the wages of cheating in any facet of life, on or off the track. We hope that all Americans will take to heart those lessons.

The sport of track and field in the United States has moved on since Marion Jones competed, reaching even higher levels of success, as a team, than when she was at her peak. No one wanted to see this happen, and we hope that Marion and her family can move on as well."

The thing is, this news doesn't bring me any sense of closure. It actually does just the opposite -- it makes me afraid that we'll be fooled again this year.

In theory, this year's Penn Relays should be one of the biggest ever. The USA vs. the World races will surely have almost all the big stars going to Beijing later this summer, competing in front of the biggest crowds they'll see anywhere before crossing the Pacific.

Given how much the event has grown over the last few years, the Saturday races should be even more electric than 2004, when Jones was here and brought the house down by anchoring the U.S. 4x100-meter relay team.

But now, we are left to only wonder how we would have reacted if we knew then what we know now... and if we've heard that before, it makes things even worse.

So when we go to Franklin Field in a few months, will we be able to believe in what we're watching?

I hope so. I want to believe that this new group of stars, such as Tyson Gay and Allyson Felix, are as clean as we think they are.

I want to enjoy the races as much as I always have, as much as the sunshine and the crowds and the fish and yam combo platters from the vendors on Walnut Street.

Because at its core, isn't the idea of sport really about believing that what we're seeing is real? Okay, I know you'll say I'm being too idealistic, but if the athletes dope and the refs gamble and the coaches shave points, how much farther do we have to go before what we watch is as fake as the scripted voyeurism that gets branded as "reality" television?

Simply put, we need sports to be real. And right now, we need track and field to not betray us again.