For the love of the game

Before I begin, let me first extend my heartfelt gratitude to Blind Swipe, for my very first insult. I am an uppity ingrate! And also thanks to Red Sox Haven (scroll to Mar. 15) for defending him and I.
Now for a joint Fire Brand column based off a guest post that Dave, the MVN webguy, posted on his blog.

Man am I sick and tired of listening to professional sports players make the money they do. I never really was upset with it until the Alex Rodriguez attempted trade to the Red Sox. Now with Ty Law crying because he doesn’t want his pride hurt due to the fact he doesn’t have the largest signing bonus among cornerbacks, AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. If any professional sports athlete is reading this I apologize if you have never complained about your contract. For the majority it is only those in the upper echelon that really drive me nuts (hmph, just like in the ‘real world’ where all those damn millionaires get lovely tax cuts thanks to Bush).
Do athletes think they work harder than the average American, is that why they think they deserve so much? I they all play a game. Yes, the must be gifted people which is why they are paid enormous amounts of money, to play a GAME! I will end this rant with my top 5 reasons as to why this has happened…
1. Agents (see Scott Boras)
2. Free Agency
3. George Steinbrenner
4. Dan Duquette
5. Dan Snyder

Why exactly has this happened? In the early 1900s, ballplayers barely made anything, had mothers sniff at the thought of someone being a ballplayer, and held down two jobs in the winter. So what now makes them one of the WORLD’s wealthiest?
Well, as more and more people started coming to the park and following them, ballplayers felt that they should start getting more slices of the pie. Babe Ruth helped make baseball what it is today, a business. He was always complaining about getting paid. To him, hitting home-runs and drawing crowds meant he should be paid well in excess of $100,000. We may (some of us) sneeze at that today, but back then, a hundred grand was nothing to sneeze at.
But it’s gone out of control. Now we have players earning higher than $20 million a year. $20 million … if I had $20 million, I could pay my way through college, my two brother’s … buy a Phaeton … a house … and still have tons of money left over to retire comfortably without having earned one paycheck. But I don’t.
Maybe ballplayers don’t try as hard as they do because they have so much money to fall back on. What I really can’t stand is when people go, “Oh, Jack McMack, instead of signing with the Yankees for $20 a year, he took a cut to stay with the Blue Jays at $18 million. What a guy!” Please. You really think $2 million is going to make that much of a difference? His loyalty played a factor, sure, but 2 million difference at that amount of money is … nothing. It’s like limits in calculus. Initially, I struggled with the concept of deposing the C, constant. We just threw it away. I told my teacher, “what if C is 4? 3 + 4 is a lot different than just 3.” The thing is though, that 4 becomes negligible when you talk about millions … billions. Think about it, we just throw away pennies. “That McMack, what a guy. He took two pennies less to stay here than to work at that darned IBM!” Same concept.
How much should ballplayers make? Suffice it to say that the league minimum of $300,000 should be paid to the likes of A-Rod. But then who would want to play? Back then, it was about playing for the love of the game. Because you wanted to. But nowadays, it’s money, money, money. People will keep playing ball as long as the money is there. When it dissapears, baseball players will turn to other sports that will pay them $20 million to do what I do playing high school baseball – for free. There’s people out there that think college and high school players should make a small stipend for playing. While I’d love money … I don’t think so, pops.
For the love of the game … what an odd notion!