Angels & Demons starring Tom Hanks drops today. Given its lackluster score on Rotten Tomatoes and the series’ last effort, it’s much more likely to be a bad film than a good one. In today’s sports landscape, however, it’s often much more difficult to distinguish the angels from the demons, the good from the bad. For instance, as I morph into a Generation X fusion of Andy Rooney and Howard Beale…

Boxing/Golf/MMA/Racing:

An antihero newbie like Brock Lesnar has quickly become more popular than good guys Anderson Silva and Georges St.-Peierre, also the sport’s best pound-for-pound fighters. Why? Probably because Silva is a Brazilian and Pierre is French-Canadian — neither speaks perfect English — while Lesnar is a good ol’ boy with a pro wrastlin’ background.

What I call the sweeter science — because, let’s face it, MMA has many, many more facets than boxing — is also viewed by some as “human cockfighting,” while violent sports like boxing and football are seen as American pastimes. Additionally, non-active “sports” like golf and NASCAR are accepted as mainstream sports, while MMA is not. You ever been in a fight? It takes a helluva lot more physicality than swinging a club at a ball or diving a car, even at ridiculously high speeds. And that’s a barroom fistfight, not a sanctioned strategic bout between two highly trained and skilled athletes.

Some people label Tiger Woods the greatest athlete in the world. Isn’t this obscenely unfair to the world’s top decathletes, athletes who excel at a wide number of grueling physical events yet receive no recognition whatsoever? Let’s get serious here; hitting a little white ball in between long walks is more skill than sport.

How can people be so passionate about a sport that is such an incredible waste environmentally? How many fields have been cut down for freakin’ golf courses? Hell, screw the environment; how many schools, and good ones, could be sitting on all of those greens? I can all but guarantee that the space occupied by golf courses blows away the space occupied by all sports stadiums.

As far as boxing, how can we stomach a sport run by the likes of Don “My Hair’s Shaped Like This Because I’m Hiding Horns” King? A sport which charges $50 a fight to watch its fights on TV, usually a mediocre one, and never gives its fans anything good for free despite the ongoing recession (unlike every other sport, including MMA)? At this point, PPV might as well stand for “pay per vasectomy.” And HBO and Showtime aren’t cheap either.

Then there’s NASCAR. The only major sport where someone could realistically die during each event. No, not some fat, old guy having a heat stroke. I’m talking about participants, I’m talking about the drivers. Dale Earnhardt is a beloved man, but he didn’t die of natural causes. I can tell you that much.

NFL:

A scumbag criminal like Chris Henry doesn’t catch half the flak that Terrell Owens, generally a model citizen off the field, does. Does T.O. deserve some criticism for his diva attitude? Absolutely. But why do we crack down harder on a locker room cancer than a cancer to society? And don’t say we don’t, because we both know that’s B.S. Even Pacman Jones — basically Tupac Shakur with cleets and without the charisma — doesn’t get venom spewed at him like Owens does.

Then there’s Michael Vick. This guy has paid the ultimate price for his crimes — financially, personally and professionally. Now that he has, he should be reinstated. There should be no double jeopardy. Nonetheless, a large percentage of sports nation wants Vick out of football for good. What if we had that same attitude about Chris Carter when he became temporarily involved with some shady business? The NFL would now be without one its greatest former players and current stewards.

What about the NFL’s drinking problem? We made a bigger deal about ex-player Joe Namath kicking back a few too many cocktails and trying to kiss Suzy Kolber than we did Jared Allen racking up two DUIs or Cedric Benson operating a boat piss drunk.

Drug problem? According to Joe Public, Shawne Merriman tarnishing the game by taking steroids, and cheating in the process, paled in comparison to Ricky Williams’ weed-smoking, a non-football related endeavor which hurt nobody but maybe Ricky himself, depending on your opinion.

Hundreds for tickets? $10 for beers? A couple Benjis for a jersey it takes three bucks to make over in China? Fans are getting bent over. Call me idealistic, but I wish we could take a little bit of the capitalism out of sports, especially football. From the sweetheart deal with DirectTV to the outrageous beer and ticket prices, it’s all about padding the pockets of the NFL and team owners. I hear people talk all the time about whether the NFL is a black league, a white league, a mixed league. In a lot of ways it’s a green league. Greed has wreaked enough havoc on American’s lives elsewhere; let’s please limit the damage. F*** Gordon Gecko; when it comes to sports, greed is bad. Yet we allow the NFL to do this to us by blindly following its product. It’s great stuff — how can we resist?

NBA:

Kobe Bryant is an arrogant villain when he mean mugs after every big shot, yet LeBron James is a joy to watch when he does the exact same thing? I am a huge Kobe fan, but I actually really like LeBron. It’s just that the double standard is undeniable.

Kobe cheated on his wife once in Eagle, CO, a mistake he has admitted and expressed regret over. Meanwhile, Michael Jordan is a divorced gambling junkie with at least one former affair the public knows about. That being said, why do Air’s errors get swept under the rug, while Bryant’s bad decision earned him a scarlett letter?

Why are LeBron’s many tattoos acceptable, but Allen Iverson’s “thuggish?”

Why do we rag on Mark Cuban for being obsessive-compulsive about his ballclub ten times more than we do Donald Sterling for not giving a damn about his? Or hate Latrell Sprewell for wanting to “feed his family,” but not call out Sterling and other tightwad owners for saying the same things with their actions? Sterling’s franchise is worth nearly $300 million more than what he bought the Clippers for almost 30 years ago. Do you think he cares that all of us our laughing at him? He could give two sh**s, because he’s laughing all the way to the bank. That’s sickening to me. If you want to just make dough, then franchise a bunch of Chipotles or something. When it comes to pro sports, fans offer up both time and money they don’t have because they have faith. They have faith that their loyalty and devotion will one day be rewarded with a championship. Where else will you find such devoted, supportive insane, stupid customers? Nowhere. To take advantage of that is downright criminal in my book. I’ve always thought that owners would be able to be fired for not striving to field competitive teams. Never happen, but I wish it would. If it did, I think Mike Brown of the Cincinnati Bengals and Sterling would have to be the first to be terminated.

Why do we hate players like Dennis Rodman, Rasheed Wallace and Ron Artest until they play for our team? Then we defend them till the end.

Why do we go berserk calling for a flagrant foul when it’s our team that is on the receiving end of a hard foul, but scream at the refs to “let ‘em play” every single other time?

Why do we cherish the intimate courtside setting the NBA allows us to enjoy, yet harass the families of players? Or even throw beers (Artest), quarters (Iverson) and all kinds of other crap at the players themselves? And how hypocritical is it of Cuban, the ultimate “fan” pro sports owner, to verbally attack fans? Money isn’t everything. I guarantee there are lots of us who love our favorite teams just as much as he loves his Mavs.

MLB:

We make such a big deal about how much money the Yankees spend every summer on free agents, but don’t gripe at all about Royals owner David Glass and his cheapskate Wal-Mart ways. As much as I hate the Yankees, shouldn’t we applaud a team that does everything possible within the system’s rules to win? And shouldn’t we condemn a team that cares only about the bottom line and not the standings?

Another thing about MLB is that there is absolutely no loyalty. Hell, how can a casual fan even keep track of who’s on their favorite team nowadays? It’s like musical dugouts or something.

Then there’s the lack of a hard salary cap. Other than the occasional small-market team that comes out of nowhere and competes, the system completely alienates fans of small-market teams.

Last but not least, steroids, HGH and “performance-enhancing drugs.” Did we really not notice that our sluggers started having PEZ dispenser heads and Popeye the Sailorman forearms as the 90s progressed? No. We just never cared as long as our baseball was entertaining and our teams were winning. Even now, we’ll bash guilty players from other teams, then pull the wool over our own eyes and become apologists when its “our” guy who gets busted. No way most Red Sox fans care if Manny Ramirez and Co. were juicing when their team reversed “the curse.” You know how I know? Because if the Chiefs won their first Super Bowl since 1969, I wouldn’t care how they did it. Fan loyalty is a sickness, call it fancer, and sometimes it negatively effects our perspectives and value systems. This has especially been the case with baseball over the past 15 years.

Religion:

We all praised missionary Kurt Warner, who moonlights as the Cardinals quarterback, when he won the NFC Championship and immediately thanked his lord and savior, Jesus Christ, on live television. Fine, I have no problem with that…as long as we allow other athletes to express themselves as well. Would we have reacted the same way if a black QB named Muhammad Jackson took home a title for his team and proceeded to thank Allah? Or if the star QB admitted to being gay and told other gay athletes they didn’t have to stay in the closet, that they could come out, accomplish great things and not be judged or persecuted? Or what if the QB admitted that he was an — GASP! — atheist? Would they immediately cut the cameras off and go to commercials, or would they keep them rolling to see the guy get bludgeoned to death with the trophy on stage?

Down off the Soapbox:

Some of you will agree with me. Others won’t at all. Some of you will probably think I’m an idiot. Hey, if so, at least I’m an idiot who’s got us all thinking about what’s wrong with sports. For even if you see no evil and hear no evil, it’s still there. Especially when it comes to sports. Still, a lot of times we choose to ignore it. Or view it in our own skewed perspective. Or focus strictly on the negative ( me, me, also me). In a way, we fans are our own angels and demons. That especially includes me.

(Adam Best is the senior editor of the FanSided.com Sports Network and the twisted mind behind Fan Addict. Follow him on Twitter.)