Everybody always talks about what a forgiving people we Americans are, but we probably forgive sports faster even than anything else. In the immortal word of that great American hero, Roger Clemens, who, in his red-white-and-blue Congressional defense, proved once again that patriotism is indeed the last refuge of the scoundrel: we misremember.

Curiously, though, first we are always so quick to postulate that some passing scandal will be the death of a sport. We should have learned by now sports are pretty bulletproof, but every time a sport suffers a setback, here come the pallbearers. Do you remember, for example, just last summer, when one rotten NBA referee was caught giving inside advice to gamblers? My gracious, to hear the talk then, this one rogue ref would surely be the death of the league, if not indeed of all of basketball.

Ho hum. The NBA has carried on quite as before. How quickly we misremember.

And for all the talk about how steroids have damaged baseball, the sport has never been more prosperous. Drugs? What drugs? Praise the Lord and raise the ticket prices.

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Indeed, it is hardly America alone that is so quick to forgive and forget with sport. The soccer scandals that were revealed in Italy rose to the very top of the major league there, with both personalities and ethics alike. After a slight pause to punish the offenders and to bewail the horror of it all, the great game was right back on track. Forza Italia!

The Olympics were a veritable grease trap of corruption for many years, but it seems that every major city in the world remains anxious to host them — and damn the cost. This summer’s Beijing games already are awash in ugliness. Theexpectation is athletes and spectators alike will be gasping at air so foul it would lay low like every proverbial canary in the coal mine. Steven Spielberg has just resigned his role as an artistic adviser to the Games, protesting China’s nefarious connection with Darfur. A clutch of world notables including eight Nobel Prize winners have added their dissenting voices. But, be assured, when the Olympics begin at eight o’clock on August 8th — tripling the Chinese lucky number — the whole lucky world will be frosted over with cries of brotherhood and good will.

I suspect that sports are so unbreakable because, as much as anything, they offer hope -- perennially. If there is one sentiment, one slogan, that best explains our love of sport, it is the venerable: wait’ll next year!

Where else in this veil of tears does hope truly spring eternal? So, in good times we relax with games and in bad times, we escape into them. Either way, they are a jolly refuge.

So don’t worry about baseball. Until and unless he is indicted for perjury, we have already misremembered Roger Clemens. In Florida and Arizona, the pitchers and catchers are chucking the hardball about, and all we care about is that that next year we waited for has surely begun again.

Frank Deford’s column also appears as commentary Wednesdays on National Public Radio’s Morning Edition. He can be reached at flamegarden@aol.com