Not so long ago, we saw truly talented baseball players denied entry to the Hall of Fame at Cooperstown because of alleged use of “performance enhancing” drugs. Keep that term in mind.

Nothing in the charges brought against those outstanding athletes suggested those drugs gave them the “batting eye” that helped them exceed all their predecessors. It was performance enhancing drugs.

Comes now “football deflate gate”, the idea being that an artificially induced treatment of a football, allegedly known to football great Tom Brady, helped him to achieve a victory in not very different ways than those drugs that popped up in the testing of the likes of Mark MacGuire, Barry Bonds, or the notorious Alex Rodriguez of the New York Yankees.

So when does something become “performance inducing” when drugs are not included? Is there really a difference between bottles and injections and some air-deflation if the illegal process creates an illegal result?

I think not.

But you really have to be careful when so much talented money is involved as is the case with Brady who does not only cash in big bucks for playing football but commands huge deals for the shoes he wears, the clothes he sports and many of the clever words he might say to support certain promotions.

There are of course the usual fans and agents who have jumped to Tom’s defense, claiming deflated balls were hardly much to think about.

Well, if that is the case, should we not reopen the matters of outright racist Ty Cobb’s entry to the allegedly pure Baseball Hall of Fame even as we have overlooked the slap-down of legendary Pete Rose for the same honor because he loved to bet his own money while racking up his own records?

At bottom, perhaps the same energies being devoted to this issue of questionable importance, might be turned to pressing governmental attention to the suffering in countries where sweatshops, often under constant threats of war, manufacture much of the sportswear we see and use and similar matters on which all our futures might rely.

If we do, perhaps Brady’s deflated balls might be put in more intelligent perspective.

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Joe Honick is president of GMA International in Bainbridge Island, Wash.