Tuesday, March 15, 2011

A $10 million dollar slave?

I've long been convinced that most professional athletes are dead from the neck up. Adrian Peterson of the Minnesota Vikings reinforces that belief.

As expected, the NFL owners and the NFL players both think they are being screwed by each other, so they headed to the collective bargaining table to see who could screw the other a little more.

What's missing from this story is that ultimately, it is the fan who is being screwed.

But Adrian Peterson doesn't see it that way. He thinks he, and his fellow NFL players are slaves.

Adrian Peterson, by the way, just signed a contract worth $10.7 million dollars.

"http://www.twincities.com/ci_17619356?nclick_check=1"

Adrian Peterson and his fellow NFL players play a school yard game, same as their buddies in the NBA and same as the boys who play major league baseball. Professional hockey players are paid to fight, which begs the question: Why don't we just put Evander Holyfield and Mike Tyson and some of those guys on skates and let 'em slug it out? No more silly rules about icing, whatever the hell that is, or being too far forward on the ice.

But I digress.

I remember a time when NFL players almost always took what were called "off-season" jobs. They worked those jobs, and when it was time to retire, they often went full-time to those off-season jobs.

I also remember a time when it was virtually unheard of for an NFL player to get arrested and go to jail. Today, we have Michael Vick going to prison, then coming out and being heralded as a hero for "enduring" his unfair prison sentence.

Wonder if Vick thinks he's a slave? His dogs damn sure were. Wouldn't surprise me one bit if he doesn't agree with Peterson. Solidarity, you know. Pacman Jones, Tank Johnson. . . how many NFL slaves, er, excuse me, players have been arrested or indicted or jailed or imprisoned in the past two decades?

Yet their salaries continue to skyrocket--for playing a schoolyard game. I'm trying to think back to my history classes. . . can't remember the slaves of old getting endorsements from ad agencies and advertisers for being the fast cotton-picker on the plantation. Likewise, trying to remember if any of the larger man slaves got signing bonuses when they exercised their free agency and got traded to another plantation.

Perhaps Adrian Peterson should stick to doing what he does best, and that is fumbling under pressure--because it looks like he just did it again, with his mouth this time rather than his hands.

2 comments:

jimbob86 said...

"What's missing from this story is that ultimately, it is the fan who is being screwed."

That screwing is entirely voluntary: Paying $100 (or whatever it is-I don't know: I've never gone to anything pricier than the local HS games, and then only because I know the players)to stand in long lines to watch a "schoolyard game" is a tax on stupidity, and entirely voluntary. It'd be a far better use of your time to actually PLAY some football (or softball, soccer, hell, even horseshoes...) than to pay to WATCH somebody else do it: excercise is a good thing and "Vicarious existence is a f***in' waste of time" .... your clock is ticking.

An Ordinary American said...

True, the fan is getting screwed.

For the price of just three or four average location seats, a fan can buy one helluva nice big-screen HD television and home theater setup.

You then watch the game from the comfort of your home. No lines to the restroom, no drunk asshole fans spilling beer down your back, no two-hour wait in the parking lot to get out onto the congested streets and highways, etc etc.

In this day and age of big-screen televisions, I have no idea why anyone wants to go watch any sporting event live.