What follows is the script for this week's "Sports at Large," with the standard admonition that you can hear my dulcet tones deliver this Mondays at 5:30 and repeated Tuesdays during "Maryland Morning," on WYPR 88.1 FM in Maryland. If you live outside the state, you can catch the streaming audio at www.wypr.org.
The Ravens are scheduled to play Denver in November, but the Broncos can do the Baltimore football team and its fans a tremendous favor months before that game.
The Broncos will help the Ravens tremendously either by making their wide receiver Brandon Marshall happy or by trading him somewhere other than here.
Make no mistake, Brandon Marshall is a hell of a wide receiver. He has amassed more than 2,500 yards in the past two seasons, and has more than 100 catches in each of those two years.
For a Ravens franchise that has historically struggled to develop a top-flight pass catcher, Marshall, who is only 25, could give quarterback Joe Flacco a quality deep threat for years.
But make no mistake about this: Brandon Marshall, who wants a new contract, is a toothache of a person. He has more than earned his nickname of "The Beast,' just from his off-field behavior.
To wit, his name has come up in 13 incidents involving the police in the past five years. They include a DUI charge in October 2007 in connection with getting caught driving the wrong way down a Denver street after a game.
There was also an incident nine months before that where Marshall claimed his father tried to hit him with a car, while the father maintained that Marshall had fired a gun.
And there are reports of domestic violence allegations against Marshall. The reports are so numerous that ESPN devoted a full half-hour show to those charges three weeks ago.
Watching Marshall stammer his way through a defense of battering multiple women was cringe inducing.
We've long passed the point where we can realistically expect our athletes to be choir boys. If you can find a sports star that you feel comfortable with your child wearing his jersey in this day and age, consider yourself lucky.
But it is not too much to expect athletes or anyone else in the public eye to simply obey the law and to have respect for someone other than themselves.
Over the years, Charm City football fans have had to root for players who allegedly drove drunk, lied to police during a murder investigation and gone to jail on drug charges.
At some point, Ravens owner Steve Bischotti and general manager Ozzie Newsome ought to give the fans players that if they can't be proud of, they, at least, won't be embarrassed by.
A member of my family will be a Ravens cheerleader this year. She is understandably pleased with her accomplishment in making the squad and proud to wear the purple and black.
I can promise that if the Ravens get Marshall, I'll find something other than watching him or the team or my relative on Sunday afternoons this fall.
My relative is smart enough to not to have anything to do with the likes of Brandon Marshall. But that's not a guarantee that other well-intentioned area women won't get hurt.
That kind of assurance can only come from Bischotti and Newsome, who ought to declare unequivocally this beast in sheep's clothing won't get to prey on anyone in Baltimore.
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