Re: for baseball fans
- From: Sean Carroll <seanc130@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2007 14:13:28 -0400
abe slaney wrote:
Sean Carroll wrote:
All I can think of when I see professional athletes is how insanely much money they make for being lucky enough to be born able to run fast and hit a ball really good, while people who are actually contributing to society, like teachers and factory workers, struggle to make ends meet.
It's entertainment. Do you have the same thoughts when you listen to The Beatles? They were born lucky enough to be able to write songs really good.
Well, one can certainly carry the argument over to other types of entertainment. I do think entertainers in general get paid a lot more than they should.
I personally tend to think that creating music, or movies, or some other such form of art -- and doing so with real quality, like the Beatles, not just pumping out commercial crap like most entertainers -- is more worthy of recognition than whacking a ball with a stick, or whatever. I just don't really see the useful contribution being made to society there. All those people sitting on their couches watching the game would get a lot more benefit from going out in the backyard and actually playing the sport themselves. And then, it would be actually about the activity, not about commercial image and merchandising.
I guess there have always been and will always be interest in large-scale athletic contests and records. That doesn't bother me so much. What bothers me is the modern institution of professional sports, which is just another billion-dollar business that sucks up more and more money all the time, for no other reason than because that's what it's about.
Athletes who actually care about the game don't bother me so much. But, as with any other field of entertainment ... how many of them are actually like that? And how many of them are just coasting by, getting to enjoy a luxurious lifestyle because they happen to be good at marketing themselves, while millions of truly talented people toil in eternal misery without reward?
Some of my animosity towards sports probably comes from bias, since I was always horrible at any kind of physical activity, and gym class was a constant nightmare for me. But I recognise the validity of sports in general as a field of endeavour. It's the institutional, parasitic nature of modern *professional* athletics that really bothers me.
--
--Sean
http://spclsd223.livejournal.com/
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Surgeon: This is an appendectomy.
House: Oh. Like I said ... don't touch his eye. [leaves]
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