professional sports

first thought about professional sports is and has been for some time that professional sports has become the equivalent of the roman gladiators during the fall of the roman empire... only recently have the rulers of professional sports shown any concern for the health and lives of the gladiators...

on the other hand, the second thought that comes to mind is that professional athletes are paid ridiculous amounts of money to play a game... the fact that football and hockey players actually risk their lives is a separate very important issue that can justify the salaries, but putting professional athletes in the top 0.1% of wealthiest people is an unfair milking of fans because ticket prices are ridiculous... food prices at games are ridiculous... merchandise prices are ridiculous... unfair to fans...

with the billions of dollars television pays to professional sports organization, fans should be allowed into games and provided food and souvenirs for free... yes, for free... a lottery system for fans to experience a live football game... perhaps the first fifty rows can be sold to the uber rich for $100 or even $1000 a ticket... but the bulk of the 50-100,000 fans should be fans, not just rich fans...

meanwhile, the hall of fame voting leads me to another ridiculousness... the holier than thou attitude that permeates our culture... the judgmental character assassination game we play in all areas, not just sports... a hall of fame should be about the best players ever... if it is not, it is not a hall of fame to me... call it a hall of fame, but don't pretend it is a tribute to the best players ever, because it is not...

for instance, here is a fair list of players deserving to be on the list of best baseball players who are not in the baseball hall of fame... get to the heart of the matter... did players of babe ruth's era not use any enhancements or have different competition that effected their statistics?... here is a thought... cocaine was legal and very popular, used widely until 1914... after 1914, it was still available by prescription... do we really believe athletes never used it?... Hank Aaron admitted using "greenies" (amphetamines) in his book... and somewhere along the way of reading i forgot what i was rambling on about... oh yeah, to pretend that using drugs is cheating and should keep players out of the hall of fame is ridiculous...

just something on my mind today... how are you? :)