Thursday, February 14, 2008
$ports and Lif€
Baseball, steroids, football, video spying, NASCAR, fisticuffs, million$ of dollar$. Does anyone really believe professional sports are some kind of fairy tale land of good sportsmanship and clean living? Come on, billions of dollars are involved here. A tenth of a second faster or slower, a foot longer or shorter can make the difference between a multi-million dollar star's contract or a hundred-grand player's contract. Try figuring the advertising dollars or ticket sales difference between a 15 and 2 team and a 3 and 12 team.
With all that money involved how can anyone honestly believe that all the participants are going to be constrained by using just their natural talents. Can you really tell me that you wouldn't swap a couple years off the end of your life versus making a few million more bucks during the prime of your life if you had a chance. If you can, you are a much better person than I am.
Sure, not everyone is on the take or taking some kind of performance booster. There are honest folks out there. But I have the feeling there are a lot of shades of honesty out there. Are you going to tell me that those players who hobble around like an old man on Friday didn't take something so they can run like the wind on Sunday? Maybe they're not pumping illegal steroids or stimulants, but they gotta be doing something. And I think whatever they did will come back to haunt them in later years. But then again, so what.
OK, you might be one of those who lives to be 93 and still goes jogging. More than likely, if you make it to 75, you'll drooling into your bran fortified oatmeal. Go to an assisted living home someday and remember that the folks in there are lucky enough to be able to afford to be taken care of. Dinner time looks like an outtake from "Night of the Living Dead" as the folks who can still walk hobble their way to dinner. And you really wouldn't swap a few years of that for a few million more in your paycheck?
Labels: celebs, freedom, gripes
