The fact is, no matter what side of the fence the Elian Gonzalez saga finds you on, you cannot be so oblivious to life as to think it doesn't affect sports. Sports, you see, is not simply about games people play. Sports is not a candy store where one finds the antidote for the day's bitter pill. Sports is a part of life, and the tether that connects them can never be cut. Sports is about racing, but also about race relations.
Sports is about stats and sex, lobs and love, hoops and hate.
And sports is about human frailties, which is why so many of those heroes fall from grace. Ask Reggie White or Muhammad Ali. Ask Bill Bradley, Jack Kemp, J.C. Watts or Steve Largent. Or the members of the 1980 U.S. Summer Olympic team who weren't allowed to travel to Moscow. Like it or not, the Elian issue spilled onto the sports pages the second that crying child was carried from his home against his will.