Few can actually remember when pro athletics weren’t such a big business. It seems like ESPN has been around since the beginning of sports and things have always been the way they are now. But we know deep down that isn’t the case and that there was once a time when athletes only played for the love of the game. This blog will reflect on how athletes are treated in modern times and asks a question, is it fair?
The Minors
In the midst of the ‘Steroid Era’, the ‘No Fun League’, and a ‘Diva run cluster bleep’ we forget sometimes that there is more to sports than just the big three where it’s hard to tell just what drives pro athletes these days. I’m talking about Baseballs farm system where players still play for chump change because they either have hopes of making it the bigs or simply love to play the game. In my humble opinion they represent the innocence that has been lost from pro sports, a largely money driven entertainment enterprise that uses up humans and spits them out when they can no longer perform to standards.
If you’re looking for purity in sports then the minors may be where you look. There was a time in America where the farm system was the only show in town and baseball hadn’t grown to become the behemoth we see it as now. As a matter of fact all sports have humble beginnings. I think the beginning of the end of innocence came when we realized just how much money could be made from pro sports. It was always more than giving athletes a stage to perform on, from the beginning it was about making a living doing something you love, but little did we know just how much of a living that would be.
Free Agency or Thanks for nothing Curt Flood
I’ve never considered myself polarizing but this next segment might change that. It’s true that pro sports needed reform, but was Free Agency the answer? I say no, Free Agency made a bad situation worse at best. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m unqualified to speak on this subject but from a lay mans perspective Free Agency made it possible for athletes and teams to agree on player salaries that are worth more than the net income of the entire third world. If you’re a teacher and can’t figure out why some guy gets paid five time what you make to play a game while you help shape societies future then I’m here to tell ya, you’re not alone.
While it’s true that the Reserve Clause was likely unfair the polar opposite Unrestricted Free Agency was and is just as bad. Pro sports needed a salary cap badly and the ones in place now are inefficient. There’s no way you can tell me otherwise because the negatives far outweigh the positives.
Follow the money
With money came a whole host of other issues, like increased public scrutiny, and a demand for more access and transparency by fans. What was also created is the idiotic belief that fans have a right to such access and transparency based on how much money they pay for a ticket and concessions. There was a time when fans put on their best Sunday clothes to go out to a ballgame, nowadays some guys don’t even wear shirts and don’t get me started about face painting and post fight brawls in the parking lot.
The bigger the business gets the more outrageous the behavior seems to get for fans and players alike, and then there is the media coverage that doesn’t help matters. A lot of the perception that people have of pro sports and its employees comes from what is reported in the news. It seems like more and more pro athletes are just high paid thugs who can’t stay out of trouble. I would argue that the percentage of knuckleheads compared to stand up guys is roughly the same now as it was in the early days of pro sports, the difference being that we didn’t have 101 ways to invade the lives of our pro athletes like we do now. ESPN doesn’t help matters when they use the same sensational tactics that news outlets use in their biased reporting to report on sports.
Money and the ludicrous amount athletes make or stand to make can also explain the Steroid Era of baseball and football. With that much money on the line in an activity that now requires a literal lifetime of devotion it’s not hard to imagine some kid using steroids to get the edge he needs. That’s not an excuse for Steroids but it should serve as reasoning behind the behavior which is a huge black eye in the world of sports.
Yes Charles you are in fact a role model
Breaking into Pro Sports is one of the hardest things to do on earth. Not only do you have to be blessed with natural talent, you have to cultivate it, dedicate your time and energy to it, and then beat out the thousands of kids who are just like you to get it. You have to be smarter, faster, and stronger than everybody else to achieve your dreams. A pro athlete’s journey is the quintessential story of triumph over adversity and for that we should look up to athletes as examples of hard work and perseverance, because they have reached a lofty goal that few can claim.
That’s also why we scratch our heads when some dunder headed athlete gets caught with a kilo of coke or a hooker or god knows what else in the trunk of their car. How could you work that hard to just throw it all away in one instance Plaxico Burress, but I digress.
It’s for that reason as well that athletes are so closely scrutinized, they make more money than god and ESPN puts their entire lives on constant display. My feeling is what good is all that money if you have no personal life or wiggle room to make mistakes.
Is it fair?
In short no, it isn’t fair that athletes are put on pedestals while the common man circles like sharks waiting for them to fall off. It’s sad that we celebrate failure more fervently than success and that those we count on for information focus on the negative and then through their hands in the air in innocence whenever pressed about it.
What it boils down to is that deep down we all know that Shaq isn’t worth millions of dollars to dunk a basketball while children starve on ‘modern’ streets. We all know deep down that we have our priorities seriously messed up and that we’ve long passed a point of no return and can’t put the monsters back inside Pandora’s box.
We may not be able to recage the monsters, but we can keep a little perspective of the grand scheme of things the next time we take in a ball game or wait in line for an autograph.
