First the lie: You might recall that the Royals did not use star closer Joakim Soria for nine consecutive days, which seemed just plain odd. Each day, Hillman would explain his reason why he did not use Soria, and each day those reasons seemed more and more curious. After one game, he launched into some sort of bizarre monologue about the dangers of bringing in closers into tie games on the road ? it wasnt easy to follow.

Well, it all turned out to be a lie. Soria was hurt. Or, anyway, thats the current version of the truth. Trey did not just sort of talk around it ? no, he lied directly. He was asked if Soria was hurt. He said no, the guy was 100 percent healthy. Those were his words. That might be a lie any time ? are any of us REALLY 100 percent healthy? ? but it was directly a lie when you considered that Soria was, you know, injured. A couple of days later. Hillman announced that, yes, Soria was hurt and would need a few days off. Trey admitted that, yes, he was lying, but for competitive reasons. It is the way he is wired, he said. He will lie to help the ballclub.

I mention this not to jab Trey ? quite the opposite, in fact. I dont think many of us blame him for lying there. I dont. We live in a time and place where more or less everyone will lie to help the ballclub. Lying is expected and often celebrated. Think about how many lies you see when watching sports.

? A punter falls down when nobody touched him. What is this but a child screaming, ?He hit me, when he didnt?

? A soccer player takes a dive in the penalty box, hoping he can coax the referee to give him a penalty kick. Another version of the ?He hit me, lie.

? A basketball player falls to the court when someone is driving toward the basket. ?He ran into me!

? A pitch in Baseball rushes inside and no one cal tell if it hit the hitters bat or his hand. The batter begins walking to first base. ?The ball hit me!

? A home run ball flies over the fence but then bounces back into the field of play. The outfielder picks it up and throws it in quickly, hoping the umpire did not notice. ?Thats not a home run!

? A wide receiver is running deep for a pass, the ball is overthrow, he falls down and then points at the defender. ?He interfered with me!

? A second baseman knows he misses the tag on a stolen base. But its close enough that he argues with the umpire and gets the crowd all riled up. ?You missed the call! You are an idiot!

? A guy drives to the basket and gets his shot blocked cleanly. He holds his arms out and stares at the referee: ?Did you not SEE him smack my hand? Are you blind?

? A general manager knows that this player has done a few bad things off the field. Bad things. The GM comes to the television booth and announces that the players a great guy and a team leader and a pillar in the community and that hes been utterly misrepresented.

On and on and on and on. We dont just accept these sorts of lies, we demand them ? if an outfielder would actually admit that a ball did leave the yard or a defensive back raised his hand as if to say, ?Yeah, I interfered, that would set off booing and a coaching lecture and hours of talk radio and Internet madness. Just the other day, Minnesotas Denard Span may or may not have been hit by a pitch. Probably not. The umpire thought the ball hit him, and Span began walking to first base and then he started to walk back to the plate ? he was stopped on the way back to the plate by manager Ron Gardenhire who was like, ?Um, no, this is not Truth or Consequences pally, lets go take our base like the nice man umpire said.

This, of course, isnt just on the field. Away from the field, many of us (most of us?) would expect a coach or general manager to lie rather than reveal information that might be used by the other team. I have little doubt that Trey Hillman is an honest man in his day-to-day life. Hes a spiritual guy. But he wanted other teams to think Soria was healthy enough to pitch the ninth inning ? and lying in that situation was more or less mandatory.

Then, there are other times in sports when we absolutely do not accept lying. Tim Johnson lied about his time in Vietnam, and he was fired as manager of the Toronto Blue Jays. George OLeary became a national punch line after he padded his resume in an effort to get the Notre Dame job. When it comes to Pete Rose, to Rafael Palmeiro, to Roger Clemens and currently to Alex Rodriguez, there seems about as much anger ? maybe even MORE anger ? about the lying that followed the original sin as there is there is for the original sin itself.

Im not saying that theres something incompatible here. We view lying differently in different situations, and we should. No, what Im saying is that its harder and harder to tell in sports where the line should be drawn, where sporting lies and repugnant lies break apart.

In fact, its harder and harder to tell in life what are lies and what are damned lies. Give you one more example: The other day, I saw this Kia Spectra commercial ? the main point of the thing seemed to be that the Spectra is better in all ways than the Toyota Corolla. It begins by showing the Kia, and pointing out that it costs $14,200.

Then it went to the same scene but without a car in the picture. This was to show there is no such thing as a $14,200 Corolla. The Corollas base sticker price is, according to the Kia Website, is $16,070. This is a fair point. The Kia is cheaper.

But then the commercial makes an odd claim. It says, ?The $14,200 Spectra gets 30 miles to the gallon. The $14,200 Corolla does not.

This seemed strange to me for two reasons. One, while Im no car expert, I find it hard to believe that a Toyota Corolla does not get 30 miles to the gallon. But more to the point, the announcer very specifically says, ?The $14,200 Corolla. Why mention the price again?

So I looked it up. And the Corolla ? again, this is from Kias own site ? gets 35 mpg on the highway. And it was as I thought: The announcer never said that the Corolla doesnt get 30 mpg. He said that the ?$14,200 Corolla doesnt get 30 mpg. And since theres no such thing as a $14,200 Corolla, this statement is, liberally speaking, true.

So is this clever? Or is this a lie? Seems to me that its hard to tell. And its getting harder all the time.

Newstex ID: 34647961