The NHL players are locked out and the season is in jeopardy — again.

The potential National League batting champion is serving a 50-game suspension for using performance-enhancing drugs.

Major League Baseball will have interleague play going on throughout the 2013 season and will still have its two leagues playing by two different sets of rules.

Oh, yeah, the All-Star Game will still determine home field advantage for the World Series.

Replacement officials are hurting the quality of NFL games as they are quickly learning how difficult it is to officiate a game ruled primarily by electronic replay footage anyway.

Notre Dame is in the ACC, West Virginia is in the Big 12, the Big East is going global ... whatever.

At some point, don’t you get tired of it?

I mean, this stuff is supposed to be fun.

With each passing year, my interest in sports continues to increase at the high school and small-college level and decrease at the professional and major college levels.

The NFL could dress its on-field officials in clown outfits, complete with orange hair and rubber noses, and no one would care.

The stadiums would still sell out, the TV ratings would still be through the roof, the league would still get its money.

Sorry. I just can’t buy what they’re selling anymore.

Yeah, I’ll still watch the games on TV here and there and I remain a loyal Pittsburgh sports fan. But no way am I going to live and die with this stuff.

Go to a high school football game, don’t deal with so much traffic, park your car for free and enjoy a pure competition in your own neighborhood.

That’s where it’s at.

Mars wants to defeat Knoch and vice versa in October every bit as much as the Pirates want to defeat the Detroit Tigers in June.

And these high school kids aren’t being paid a dime.

The entertainment lies in the game itself, not the talent level of the people playing it.

Ask anyone who has attended a Butler BlueSox game whether he enjoyed that night out at the ballpark. The odds of any player on the diamond that night ever sniffing a major league uniform are remote.

It doesn’t matter.

Check out a high school hockey game at Warrendale Blade Runners or the Ice Connection in Valencia.

It’s quality play, fast-paced and fun.

It’s just not the pros.

Professional sports have gotten out of hand because we the sporting public have allowed it to happen.

We control how those entities exist because we control how much money they make.

Pay the $40 to park your vehicle at Heinz Field and enjoy the electric atmosphere in that stadium each Sunday — and that excitement in the stands is admittedly hair-raising.

But I’ll stick with Slippery Rock University, being entertained by a spread offense and a hard-hitting defense.

And real officials.

John Enrietto is sports editor of the Butler Eagle