It was a painful week for the sporting world, one that raised many questions.

On Tuesday, Feb. 17, former Iowa State basketball player Kenny Pratt was back in the headlines. The following night, longtime Chicago Cubs announcer Harry Caray died of brain damage due to a heart attack.

One event seems to display everything that is bad about sports. The other shows everything that’s good.

Pratt, still having jail time to serve, was confronted by police before an International Basketball Association game.

The police said they would let Pratt play if he surrendered after the game. But immediately after the game, he fled the scene while still in his uniform. He was caught and brought in for a 1996 contempt of court charge.

Is there anything good in sports today?

“One, two, three, take me out to the ballgame …”

Throughout his years, Harry Caray displayed a feverish love for baseball, which was contagious to anyone he was around.

Though baseball seems to be losing its fans as well as its spirit, Caray embodied that spirit. He announced games through the eyes of a child. When a ball was hit deep, Caray would rise to his feet and chant his trademark phrase “Holy Cow!”

This enthusiasm was somehow magical and is what drew people to him. Cubs fans often lived for that famous seventh inning stretch where they might catch one glimpse of Caray singing “Take me out to the ballgame!”

And though the team he followed was by no means a powerhouse, he never left them. In an era where so many fans and even athletes seem to bail on a losing team, Caray swam against the current and stuck by the Cubs. It was, no doubt, Harry Caray that helped one of the losingest baseball programs of the nineties remain one of the most loved.

Though Caray’s death itself was a tragedy, the life he lived will forever mark him as the true sportsman.

Obviously, there are some bad things going on in the sporting world. Kenny Pratt abused his position as an athlete. He thought he was above the law and was exempt to any jail time. Just by being an athlete, Pratt is a role model, and the example he’s setting for kids is a terrible one.

Despite Pratt and athletes like him, the magic of sports still remains. In the way Caray lived, he was by no means a role model. But the spirit he brought to baseball and the love he had for the game is something we will all remember.