Somewhere along the line we have been convinced that entertainment was more important than life. I will explain if every professional athlete in the world baseball, football, hockey, and et cetera would disappear off the face of the earth tomorrow the earth would survive. If all the farmers and the others who feed, house, us disappeared tomorrow you know the answer. Who do we pay the most money to the people we need or the people we don’t you also know the answer. I live in a country that produces a lot of baseball player and the children are brought up seeing these as an idol. Two years ago one baseball player came home shot his cousin to death paid off the family and when back to the US to play ball. This is not an isolated case. When these people [athletes] go on strike what do they do go out and play for nothing. They need to do away with professional sports find some other way of entertaining yourself maybe by helping out in the community. We need to find another role model for our children
You do have a valid point here. Look at the firefighter, they risk their lives on a daily basis, and in some state their pay is ridiculous. Yet we can pay athletes millions of dollars. Yes, I know that they have trained long and hard to be good in their field. But are they worth more then others show have made a major contribution to society. I really don't think so, but apparently these sports organizations do.
The funny thing is when they are out on strike and off season what to they do is to go out and play for free. They will play for free but they want millions of dollars to play??
Those who play in many types of professional sports have very short careers, so that should be kept in mind, not that it necessarily warrants the kind of money they are getting. Nevertheless, they are being paid what the team owners can afford to pay them, and they can afford to pay such salaries because we attend their games, watch them on cable, and buy memorabilia and accessories. Interestingly, in baseball, at least, seeing as I am not familiar with the other sports, there are alternatives in professional baseball leagues other than the major leagues, where players do not command such extravagant salaries, but we don't watch them. For example, when I lived in the UP of Michigan, we'd drive 300 miles to see the Milwaukee Braves. While I was in California, I would regularly attend California Angels games and I'd fairly often drive to Los Angeles for Dodgers games, yet I have lived much closer to minor league ball parks and have attended only one minor league game in my life. I've been in Maine for sixteen years and have never seen the Portland Sea Dogs play, and baseball is pretty much the only sport I like. That kind of thinking starts early. When I was a paramedic, we would have an ambulance at all of the high school games, and I noticed that, while the Varsity games were standing room only, I don't even think that all of the parents of the kids playing in the Freshman or Junior Varsity bothered to show up for games, as the seats were empty.
It is true, we seem to have everything the wrong way around. Our children's idols are mostly people who have no character and integrity. We need to guide them carefully. I still have one young son at home and it is more and more difficult to point these children in the right direction. We are brainwashed by the media. There are so many great characters out there that no-one even pays attention anymore. It is always some sportsman or some movie star. Although, you have to consider that today there are so many different sporting careers that never existed before.
It's really no different today than it's always been. When I was young Mickey Mantle was my main hero along with other baseball and football players. Most people who play sports don't make it to the big leagues, but we have all grown up playing sports so we can identify with the stars of our favorite sports. We also grew up playing "Cowboys & Indians" and like to watch the movie heroes. We didn't grow up playing plumbers, carpenters and such.