There's not a lot of good news to be found in the sports section nowadays

The sports pages/section of a newspaper or website used to be one of my favorite places to check first, even before the real news. The reason is simple: I like sports news because it's generally happy and positive.

It's one of the only places in the paper you can read about someone's success: somebody hit a homerun, scored a touchdown or broke a record. Most news stories aren't positive or focus on someone's failure: somebody died, a politician is involved in yet another scandal, fires are burning across the country and the list goes on.

But anymore, I'm having a hard time telling the sections apart. Take a look at a list of headlines on a popular news site's sports section from yesterday:

* Broke ex-QB hocking his stuff (Vince Young)

* Ex-wrestler faces murder rap (Brian Michael McGhee, former WWE wrestler who has used the names Donovan Ruddick, D.T. Porter and "The Future.")

* Report: Yanks to punish A-Rod (For steroid use. And probably for impeding the proceeding investigation)

* Phenom blasts first walk-off HR

* New Hernandez pics with gun? (Former New England Patriots tight end charged with executing an acquaintance, has since been linked to multiple murders or shootings)

* O.J. pleads to panel for parole (O.J. Simpson. You might have heard of his previous legal troubles. As a refresher, he's currently in jail for breaking into a hotel room and taking items he claimed belonged to him at gun point, not for actually killing anyone.)

A few hours later, that same site had updated to these headlines:

* 49er fires agent he says cost him millions (Player lost $2 million because neither he nor his agent actually read his contract. Had either one had, they would have realized that the player would have gotten a $2 million bonus participating in offseason activities at the team facility, not in Texas, where he spent the offseason.)

* Broke ex-QB hocking his stuff

* LB killed as boy plays with gun (University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff freshman walk-on linebacker Lydell Hartford Jr.)

* See player survive scary crash (Florida State University tight-end Nick O'Leary)

* Ex-wrestler faces murder rap

* Report: Yanks to punish A-Rod

* O.J. pleads to panel for parole

In addition to the original stories, the list of headlines was updated to include stories of a football player losing serious contract money ($2 million of the $2.925 million he was expecting to earn this season. Despite still making almost a $1 million to play football, no one would be happy about losing out on 2/3 of their annual pay, especially when a football player has limited years of his career left.); a college football player being shot and another living after a near-death experience on his motorcycle.

This afternoon, the same list included these headlines:

* Rose, of all people, has advice for MLB cheats (Pete Rose)

* Olympic star failed drug test? (sprinter Tyson Gay)

* Soriano officially back to Yanks

* Packers QB: Braun lied to me (Braun was recently suspended for using steroids after famously denying the allegations in 2011)

* Bad news for NL team in hunt (Pittsburg Pirates' pitcher Jason Grilli is out for the remainder of the season due to an injury)

* Top NFL pick agrees to deal

* Tough first day for Pats' Tebow (Tebow is trying to make the Patriots' roster, and will perhaps be used as a tight end to replace Hernandez while the team's other tight end is out with an injury)

Three stories dealing with cheating, a player's season-ending injury (which is part of sports) and a story on a player who might replace a player currently sitting in jail on murder charges.

Not a lot to be cheerful about in the sports nowadays.