Sports, Occasionally

Although this is not a sports column, I do work up a sweat doing verbal gymnastics betimes. But March is such a "sporting" month, I just couldn't help adding my shrewd insight to the nutty world of athleticism. When I say "nutty" I don't mean peanuts, because athletes today are not playing for peanuts and tickets on game day aren't mere peanuts, either. I mean "nutty" as in what Mr. Oxford defines as "mad" (informal).

Where do I start? Baseball, with its spring training gong show and obscene salaries? Basketball, with it appropriately-named "March Madness" at the college level or sweaty arrogance both between the lines and between the sheets? What about professional football and its free agency chaos? I could talk about hockey, perhaps the least crazy of the big four professionals, and comment on its legalized fisticuffs - but I won't.

Some of you may want me to include golf, but I think I'll restrict my comments to sports.

Others may want me to speak to lacrosse, soccer, and curling issues, and perhaps someday I will. I sincerely see those as true sports, especially because so much is demanded of the individual to make the team succeed. The whole, then, is only as great as the parts that comprise it. My take on them is that they involve playing with others to truly be a team, but they rely so heavily on individual ability – more so than the big four (three paragraphs north of here).

But back to the nut gallery: One of the nuttiest stories to come down the wire (a cool journalistic term for 'news source') is that of the twenty-five million dollar man (not). I speak specifically of Manny Ramirez, formerly of the Boston Red Sox, and now of the Los Angeles Dodgers. This story has three sets of morons: Moron A is the management that offered him the money; Moron B is the agent that advised Manny what to do; and Moron C is Manny himself, the one who who turned it down. (Breaking news: We can all rest at night now, as Mr. Ramirez has just settled on a two-year contract for a mere $45 million.)

Now, I don't know for sure, but I believe Ramirez did not turn it down because he felt it was "unconscionable." (Mr. Oxford tells me that that means "not right or reasonable.") No, I believe he turned it down because it was not enough. Twenty-five million dollars is not enough? Enough for what? For whom? I can think of companies that could survive on that kind of money.

The greater obscenity is that is was a one-year contract.

If I could add another moron to my exhibit, I was add Moron D, another name for Joe Public (meaning sportswriters and fans). I don't hear their hue and cry. With over 500,000 of our American friends shown the door in January alone, with Massa Obama adding more zeroes to the national debt, as if doodling with the nation's future on scrap paper, this clown - who spends merely half a year swinging a stick at a small white ball - dismissed what is arguably the richest contract offer in sports history.

Then I also read last week where the Washington Redskins offered a $100 million contract to a former Tennessee Titan defensive lineman. (I'd reveal his name, but I am protecting him from perhaps some of my more ambitious readers who may want to claim him as their long, lost uncle.) My, oh, my: There's more money pouring out of every part of Washington these days...

On the one hand, there are lay-offs, foreclosures, bankruptcies galore across the nation, while on the other hand, there seems to be higher and greater salaries offered to professional athletes. I don't know which of the major four is worse, but after seven million dollars a year, who's counting?

Parents, don't raise your kids to be hardworking tradesmen or farmers. Get them into sports, any and every sports: The difference will be in the dough – as in the bread line or money in the bank.