Baseball is a game played with a ball. Players deserve high pay but the amounts are almost obscene. Players spend years earning their place and one injury can end it all, so yes, they earn a good contract. But the amounts most players in most sports get are outrageous even for a lifetime’s earnings to be made in the few years that they can play and still retire in good health.
That said, team owners aren’t on baseball trading cards are they? And for the most part owners are not on the tip of the tongue of every school kid in the team’s hometown (at least not in a good way).
A day at the ballpark (sorry, but night games with kids just ain’t the same as a bright sunny afternoon now, are they?) just shouldn’t cost the average family a week’s wages for four tickets, drinks, hotdogs, and a big ol’ bag of in the shell peanuts.
Teams that want a new ballpark should not expect the entire community to pay for it. They shouldn’t expect multi-year breaks from taxes either. The poor slob driving a 15 year old car should be able to afford to see a game once in awhile without having to skip a few meals that week to pay for it. And if that same poor slob hates sports, they shouldn’t have the team and its stadium added onto his tax bill.
Fair pay should be fair for everybody. But that works two ways both for reasonable demands and for billionaires not getting away with robbing a community and not working players to death for peanuts either.
The players need a reality check as much as a paycheck. And the owners need to pay for what they want to invest in – and not lay the burden in the community. Let the owners pay their way like everybody else. They’re the ones getting obscenely rich on the backs of others.
Baseball is a game played with a ball. Players deserve high pay but the amounts are almost obscene. Players spend years earning their place and one injury can end it all, so yes, they earn a good contract. But the amounts most players in most sports get are outrageous even for a lifetime’s earnings to be made in the few years that they can play and still retire in good health.
That said, team owners aren’t on baseball trading cards are they? And for the most part owners are not on the tip of the tongue of every school kid in the team’s hometown (at least not in a good way).
A day at the ballpark (sorry, but night games with kids just ain’t the same as a bright sunny afternoon now, are they?) just shouldn’t cost the average family a week’s wages for four tickets, drinks, hotdogs, and a big ol’ bag of in the shell peanuts.
Teams that want a new ballpark should not expect the entire community to pay for it. They shouldn’t expect multi-year breaks from taxes either. The poor slob driving a 15 year old car should be able to afford to see a game once in awhile without having to skip a few meals that week to pay for it. And if that same poor slob hates sports, they shouldn’t have the team and its stadium added onto his tax bill.
Fair pay should be fair for everybody. But that works two ways both for reasonable demands and for billionaires not getting away with robbing a community and not working players to death for peanuts either.
The players need a reality check as much as a paycheck. And the owners need to pay for what they want to invest in – and not lay the burden in the community. Let the owners pay their way like everybody else. They’re the ones getting obscenely rich on the backs of others.