Making excuses, that has become the name of the game at all levels in sports and it is enough to make the stomach turn. It begins at an early age and never ends until someone gets really hurt or real damage is done.

We can start with the youngest kids who show athletic talent. Excuses will be made for every kiddie mistake they make so they can continue to play sports even if they should be held at home for a few games to get the idea that shoplifting is really wrong.

It happened last week out west with a bus full of high school students who were the baseball team for some school soon to be embarrassed. They stopped at a store and everybody took an aisle to see how much they could walk off with. They were caught by a clerk and the kids said they had planned to pay for the stuff in their pockets. Right.

The principal said they would end the season right there if the kids didn’t fess up. The parents wanted to call it just kids being kids. Hey, they are athletes. Who knows, one of them might be famous and make a million dollars down the line – wouldn’t want to marr that would we?

The kids didn’t want to squeal. Wonder where they learned that line of thinking? The situation is being played out. Let’s make the kids inner-city African Americans doing the same thing at the corner store. Get the picture?

Let’s make excuses for Lawrence Taylor, the former Pro Bowl pick – all the stories on his purchase of crack say he was that. What has that got to do with buying crack?

The prosecutor says he probably won’t go to jail, “Normally, there’s no jail time because it’s the least of the (crack cocaine) offenses that you could be accused (of). You don’t have possesion of it; you’re charged with trying to get possesion.” That’s a good one, but hey he’s a former Pro Bowler. Let’s have that same African American kid get caught for the same offense in the city. Let’s make some more excuses for for the athlete.

How about some excuses for the college coaches who don’t want to know about the dollars under the table. How about some more for the likes of Bobby Knight and his chair-throwing, hit-the-kids rampages. Hey, he must be a star. He’s always on TV and in the magazines. Let’s make excuses.

The stupid father who sees Knight whack the kid on TV figures that must be the way if Bobby does it. So whack that kid around and let’s have some more child abuse.

Now let’s dig up some really good pecans for Cincinnati Reds owner Marge Schott. Sunday in an interview with ESPN she is quoted as saying of Adolf Hitler, “Everybody knows he was good at the beginning, but he just went too far.” Are you kidding me? How can this crap keep turning up and everybody just kind of shrugs?

Will Major League Baseball rise up in a fury and denounce this idiot? Acting, and not very well at that, Commissioner Bud Selig responds by saying, “There’s just no appropriate comment.” Like hell there isn’t.

But, hey, we’re talking sports here and we certainly wouldn’t want to do anything that might look responsible. Let’s just make some more excuses. Better yet, let’s just take the Nazi approach – none of this ever happened.