It's a funny time for us to be entering a new moral age in sports, but as long as it's here, we might as well play along. We'll let you know the dates of the retreat as soon as the church office makes them available.

Now that Boston Globe columnist Bob Ryan is out of work for a month because of his indefensible and regrettable words regarding Joumana Kidd, every sports-radio shock jock is going to have to watch what he says on the air.

	Joumana Kidd is one of many subjects that are now off limits.

No more harassment of visiting players, no more homophobic comments, no more pre-adolescent remarks about genitalia or strippers or any combination thereof. All that innuendo-banter with the female traffic reporter -- you know, the one called "Misty Stalls" -- is no longer acceptable. Many jobs will be lost, but that's the cost of the new Puritanism.

America simply won't stand for it anymore.

We're cleaning up sports, one step at a time.

College football coaches now will be required to attend church functions at least three times a week. We've always known the football/morality link was the foundation of our nation, but it took Mike Price to make us realize something needed to be done.

Football coach. Moral arbiter.

I get it.

And you, the fans. You can't be saying that stuff from the stands anymore. You can't drop F-bombs in front of kids -- probably a bigger transgression than Price's, to be honest -- and you can't take up that whole female anatomy thing with the opposing pitcher when he walks off the field.

Oh, and it would be nice if you stayed the hell off the field.

Sorry. Stay the heck off the field.

And the guys who actually play the games? Well, so far, they're exempt.

Just as long as they don't do something crazy, like get their hair cut in the clubhouse.

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