It was far from the first time that scandal has reared its head in the highest echelons of sports ownership. Follow the connections closely enough and one will find dozens of franchise owners who have either direct of tangential relations to organized crime, government surveillance initiatives, deep-pocketed political entities and financial irregularities that bilked people out of billions. What horrible right-wing (or criminal) cause is your favorite team connected to?

Chicago Cubs are owned by Joe Ricketts, who apparently planned to pour $10 million into an anti-Obama super PAC, which would have developed a Jeremiah Wright ad campaign

Los Angeles Dodgers are co-owned by Magic Johnson, whose group bought the team from Frank McCourt, who bought the team from Fox Entertainment Group, which is run by Rupert Murdoch 

New York Mets are owned by Fred Wilpon, who blindly invested with Bernie Madoff, who was convicted of running a $65 billion Ponzi scheme

San Diego Padres are owned by John Moores, who succeeded Tom Werner, who succeeded the wife of the late Ray Kroc, the man responsible for the global popularity of McDonald’s, which has helped contribute to unprecedented nationwide obesity

New York Jets are owned by Woody Johnson, who gave much financial support to the 2008 Republican National Convention, where there were hundreds of antiwar protesters arrested

Houston Texans are owned by Bob McNair, who gave $100,000 last year to the Make Us Great Again super PAC, which was formed to support Rick Perry’s presidential campaign

Chicago White Sox used to be owned by Charles Comiskey, whose cheapness led to the Black Sox scandal, which was influenced by Arnold Rothstein, who was notorious for orchestrating illegal gambling

Houston Astros are owned by Jim Crane, who was preceded by Drayton McLane Jr., who helped orchestrate a new stadium deal, which took millions in naming rights from Enron, which collapsed on account of billions of dollars in fraudulent accounting

Texas Rangers are co-owned by Nolan Ryan, who succeeded Tom Hicks, who bought the team from George W. Bush

Los Angeles Kings are owned by media magnate Philip Anschutz, who founded concert and sporting event organizer Anschutz Entertainment Group, which was sued by Michael Jackson’s family after his death

New York Yankees are controlled by Hank and Hal Steinbrenner, who inherited the team from father (and Nixon contributor) George Steinbrenner, who got banned from baseball after he conspired with Howie Spira, who took Steinbrenner’s money because he owed $100,000 due to illegal gambling that was controlled by the Mafia

Manchester United is majority-owned by Malcolm Glazer, who once owned oil company Zapata Offshore, which was founded by George H.W. Bush who led America into the Gulf War

San Diego Chargers are owned by Alex Spanos, whose son is Chargers president Dean Spanos, who has contributed to the Invest in a Strong & Secure America PAC, which is affiliated with San Diego-based congressman Darrell Issa, who helped kick-start the 2003 California gubernatorial recall

Detroit Red Wings are owned by Little Caesars Pizza founder Mike Ilitch who recently gave $12,500 to the National Republican Congressional Committee, which has created hundreds of anti-Democratic attack ads

New York Islanders are owned by Charles Wang, who co-founded software firm Computer Associates, whose top executives, including Wang, were once sued for falsely reporting more than $2.5 billion in revenue

San Francisco 49ers are co-owned by Denise DeBartolo York, who inherited the team from her father, Eddie DeBartolo Jr., who was implicated in the criminal dealings of Louisiana Gov. Edwin Edwards, who was subsequently convicted of money laundering, extortion and racketeering

Boston Red Sox, whose chairman is Tom Werner, who was an executive producer of “Roseanne,” which starred Roseanne Barr, who once performed what many regard as the most offensive National Anthem ever

Arizona Cardinals are owned by Bill Bidwill, who has given more than $60,000 over the past 18 months to the Republican National Committee, which was recently found to have engaged in altering Supreme Court audio for an anti-Obama ad

Los Angeles Clippers are owned by Donald Sterling, who has been sued numerous times for discrimination against black and Latino tenants in Los Angeles

Golden State Warriors are co-owned by Joe Lacob, who was once an executive with Booz, Allen & Hamilton, which helped the U.S. government develop the Total Information Awareness electronic surveillance program

That is why we have decided to take an unprecedented step here at Sexiest Men World Headquarters. We have in the past fought epic, bloody internal battles over men like Zach Galifianakis, Al Franken and Louis C.K. But we have never, in our sexy, sexy history, revoked a man’s title. Until now.

We understand that the Roman Catholic boxer has to be true to his beliefs, and we would never insist that falling in lock step with Salon’s own socialist, American fabric-destroying agenda is the only criterion for making the list. It’s just that we suddenly don’t feel like going a few sweaty rounds with a dude who thinks civil rights “adulterate the altar of matrimony.”

So instead we’re passing on the crown to one of last year’s runner-ups. Like Pacquiao — and also like our beloved first Sexiest Man, Carell’s former “Daily Show” colleague Stephen Colbert – he’s a happily married, self-described “born and bred” Catholic. But this one says, “I stay clear of declaring my political choices,” insisting humbly, “I feel like my voice is no more valuable, no less valuable than anyone else’s.”

What really makes us go weak in the knees is how he turned a bumbling, inept bag-of-wind character and made us care when he said goodbye to “The Office.” And, last summer, he took a broken, pathetic, recently divorced dad and made him so tenderly romantic (and so darn good-looking in a tailored suit) he nearly made us forget Ryan Gosling in “Crazy, Stupid Love.” We’ve had a thing for him since before he became a 40-year-old virgin. We’d choose him as our friend for the end of the world. How could we ever have been so blinded by that pugilistic piece of beefcake? That’s why today, we’re asking newest Salon Sexy Man Steve Carell, will you gay marry us?

Skip forward to 2012 — a superheated moment primed by seething protest campaigns and a divisive presidential election. Not surprisingly, the sports world has again shifted, becoming just as politically fraught as the society it entertains — and whether or not you agree with a particular sports icon’s opinion, the larger change is a welcome development for participatory democracy.

In the last few years, we’ve seen sports activism at every locus on the ideological continuum. On the right, football phenom Tim Tebow starred in an antiabortion Super Bowl ad. In the transpartisan middle, Boston Bruins goaltender Tim Thomas refused to attend the White House’s Stanley Cup ceremony because he said he “believe(s) the Federal government has grown out of control.” And on the left, Major League Baseball teams have led public campaigns against anti-gay bullying.

No matter the issue, sports is now involved. The NFL players association has proudly supported public workers’ high-profile fights. Miami Marlins manager Ozzie Guillen (clumsily) highlighted the hypocrisy of an American government that at once embraces various dictators but shuns Cuba’s autocratic regime. And, of course, LeBron James organized Miami Heat players into a hoodie-themed photo in solidarity with those demanding an investigation into the shooting of Trayvon Martin.

James’ move best highlights the veering undercurrents. As the Bleacher Report’s Ryne Hodkowski noted, the NBA star for years mimicked Jordan and other 1990s-molded “corporate athletes who don’t say anything political in fear of losing a big-time contract.”

Now, though, even carefully managed figures like James are weighing in on national controversies. Such moves exemplify both personal courage and, as important, an America that has suddenly become politically engaged. Indeed, fans now expect their sports deities to embrace that new normal — and, as James shows, those deities are increasingly responding to the call.

Many criticize this transformation, insisting that athletes should play ball and keep quiet about anything else. Summing up that belief in the wake of Guillen’s impolitic comments, Politico’s Jonathan Allen declared that athletes should “just shut up” and play.

On the surface, the jeremiad may seem perfectly reasonable — but its deeper suppositions are abhorrently elitist and anti-democratic. They assume that only certain kinds of establishment-vetted individuals — specifically, professional political operatives, politicians, pundits and reporters — have standing to promote political causes.

That sentiment should be offensive not just to athletes, but to anyone not of the professional political class. Because, really, if a baseball manager or a basketball player somehow has no right to speak out, why should a plumber or a factory worker have that right?

In a political culture constantly paying homage to the working-class creed, few would — or should — say that such blue-collar laborers must simply “shut up and work.” It should be the same standard for athletes. The more these public figures exercise their right to speak out on major issues, the more they help teach younger generations that politics is not a game only for Washington, D.C., elites, nor a punch line only to laugh at during “The Daily Show” — but a critical battle of ideas that requires everyone’s participation.

The Guiding One died in 2006, three years before the Chosen One cracked up and stopped winning major tournaments, four short of Jack Niklaus’ record of 18. Tiger’s mind was blown. I didn’t much care. This wasn’t Magic Johnson getting sick or Dale Earnhardt hitting the wall. This was a surly, entitled control freak who had intimidated the golfing media and gotten a pass in general because he made the 1-percenters even richer.

But he was a Lost Boy, after all, and that old poignancy must have bubbled up because I found myself rooting for him – as I always have for O.J. and Iron Mike – through the Masters tournament this weekend. And what could better serve the narrative than the Chosen One coming back to us on Easter Sunday? I should have known better. With Jeremy Lin and Tim Tebow, who may possibly be angels, already in play, why would the Great Scorekeeper waste a round on a churl who had blown it. Back in 2002, Tiger could have integrated the Augusta National Golf Course with females and all shades of golfers of color, with nothing more than a raised eyebrow.

But now he just kept slipping deeper in the Masters pack. He sulked and raged, cursed and threw clubs. Maybe he was sensing, as I was, that he was beginning the long slide down into the sports department of Limbo where Mike and O.J. await.

Of the three Lost Boys, I met Mike Tyson first, when he was around 14. He was a retired mugger from Brooklyn remanded to the Tryon School for Boys in upstate New York. He was beating up all the inmates and starting on the guards when a counselor brought him to Cus D’Amato, a once-famous fight manager down on his luck who lived nearby. The aging white man saw the chunky black kid as a, well, Chosen One.

He eventually adopted Mike and added his own rage and paranoia to Mike’s. He taught Mike to use his fears as fuel. Mike was still in his teens when Cus told me, “He may go down as one of the greatest fighters of all time … if there are no distractions.”  Cus died in 1985, the year before Mike, at 20, became the youngest heavyweight champion in history. He soon became distracted and began to spin out of control.

I met O.J. for the first time in 1969 at Joe Namath’s bar in Manhattan where he told me a story. At a teammate’s wedding, he said, he was sitting at a table with other black players when a white woman said, “You don’t have to sit with the niggers, you can sit with us.” When I expressed my liberal horror, he grinned at my ignorance. She was telling him, he insisted, that she didn’t see him as black or white, just as O.J. Lost Boy, indeed.

I came to Tiger, indirectly, when he was about 15 – and missed the story. An old black man came up to me on a public golf course in L.A., tapped my notebook and told me he had a better story than whatever I was covering. There was a kid, he said, who would soon own golf because of his father, a former Green Beret lieutenant colonel. Dad had taken Tiger to a military course where an admiral spotted him and said, “You’ve got some golfer there, Sergeant.” Earl would have Tiger make the payback for that racial and class slur.

When Tiger crashed his car in 2009 and the turgid details of his psycho sex life emerged,  I had the same thought I had in 1997 when Mike, after three years in jail for rape, bit off part of Evander Holyfield’s ear while losing a title fight: This is how you declare emotional bankruptcy when you’ve been conditioned to never quit, when blowing up your world is the only way out.

Maybe O.J.’s blundering  kidnapping and armed robbery caper in 2007 was also a psychic suicide. It seemed too silly to be judged seriously, so I figured he was sentenced for being acquitted of murdering his ex-wife and her friend in 1995. I had been ridiculed for my theory then that O.J. was protecting the real killer, his son, knowing he could beat the rap while the kid couldn’t. I’m delighted that the theory has reappeared in a new book. O.J. is 64 and in prison until at least 2017.

Iron Mike, 45, seemingly smiley on meds, can be seen in such odd fare as the “Hangover” movies, a cable reality show in which he trains racing pigeons, and the Charlie Sheen roast (I do recommend James Toback’s superb documentary “Tyson”).

None of the Lost Boys was able to craft his own character, to be his own man. Cus created his son to whip the world but not to find and hold his place in it. O.J. had too many fathers – coaches, producers, directors – and he spent his life trying to please them. By the closing rounds of the Masters, it began to seem possible that Tiger was ready to hole out and join them.

Through 14 years and two Super Bowls with the Indianapolis Colts, there was something reassuringly manly about Manning, his cool leadership, his laconic but friendly demeanor, his thoughtful professionalism, that evoked my role models on the Encore Westerns channel like Marshal Dillon and Wagonmaster Flint. (Something went out of American life when the legend of the western hero was replaced by the myth of the sports idol.)

Tebow also evoked the TV cowboy for me, those boyish enthusiasts, Rowdy Yates and Deputy Johnny McKay, still learning but eager to make things happen. Tebow, in his second year at Denver last season, was rough edges and a wonk’s nightmare – his various quarterback ratings and statistics were low – but he did make things happen, as a team leader and a fearless runner when he couldn’t pass, which was often. He became a fan favorite because he tried so hard, often succeeding in the clutch toward the end of games, and a cultural phenomenon for bringing extreme praying to the mainstream tent. He was always ready to take a knee for God.

“Tebowing” became a something of a joke, which was unfair. He wasn’t cool about his Christianity, like so many athletes, including Jeremy Lin. He lived it. But his retrograde beliefs grated on most sports commentators, who tend to find it easier to understand the more traditional jock outlets of driving drunk and assaulting women.

Tebow was a quarterback whose arm, accuracy and game smarts were not considered elite — yet he somehow won anyway. God forbid it was the confidence he got from his faith. But isn’t sports about teaching kids that you can make it if you try hard enough?

Assuming that Tebow will not be kept on in Denver to make Manning even better (as running back or tight end, for example), it figures that he will soon be dealt off. The Miami Dolphins would be a good fit. Tebow’s success at the University of Florida makes him a local hero, and the large Jewish population might give him the chance to refine his other controversial skill, performing circumcisions. He needs to sharpen the technique he practiced at his father’s evangelical ministry in the Philippines.

In Miami, Tebow can mix a little profane with his sacred, hanging out with the Heat basketball star LeBron James, dubbed by author Scott Raab as “The Whore of Akron” for leaving Cleveland to take his talents to South Beach, an American Sodom that could use a missionary like Tebow.

A more serious issue for the NFL is what to do about the defensive unit of the New Orleans Sinners, who, under the supervision of a seasoned, respected coach, instituted cash bounties for knocking opponents out of the game. A good, hard hit that put a rival player on a stretcher might be worth $1,000. As it turned out, this was not aberrant behavior in the National Football League, although it was against the rules, and, I thought, against the spirit of the game.

It may also turn out that the neck injury that kept Manning out of football last season was originally suffered in a game against New Orleans. Could he have been a targeted hit? How much to sack him, to knock him out of the game, to end his career? Just for money, a victory and bragging rights? Doesn’t seem very manly. Football is supposed to have the madcap gallantry of a World War I cavalry charge, not the mean cowardice of a drone attack.

The best we can hope for is that the thuggish Saints coach and the wimps who didn’t have the moral courage to stand up to him are suspended for the season, one less concern as Manning revives his exemplary career in Denver and Tebow, wherever in God’s name he ends up, finds spiritual satisfaction.

UPDATE: So Tebow is going not to the Miami Dolphins but the New York Jets. New York will still give him a large circumcision roster for his shaky arm and a Sodom for his faith-healing, but it will also test him cruelly. It might seem that New York fans would mock his kneeling ways and his anti-abortion stand, but they will also forgive anyone who wins. Will the temptations of the Big Apple be Tebow’s downfall? I hope not. Lord knows the Jets need that mindless confidence that only faith supplies.

And as to the New Orleans Saints: the League stood tall, suspending not only the defensive coach, but the head coach, and penalizing the franchise. There may be further penalties for the players involved. One should not have expected less, of course, as football faces lawsuits and moral indictments for its long failure to deal with head traumas.