Thursday, December 2, 2010

For the Love of the Money?

One of my favorite (not too recent) movies is "For the Love of the Game" starring Kevin Costner. It wasn't necessarily because of the acting but more because of the message of the movie. For those of you who haven't seen it, Kevin Costner plays a major league baseball pitcher who in his younger days, unbeatable. The movie shows the struggles of this pitcher as he battles back from injury and a body that is breaking down on him to the climax of a no-hitter going into the last inning. Anyway, Costner sacrifices what could possibly be a once in a lifetime opportunity for the good of the team and he takes himself out of the game in order that the team may have a better chance to win. Then he makes the decision to walk away from the game, which was a decision he made "for the love of the game".

You might wonder why in the middle of football and the start of basketball season is Dale talking about this movie. Well, here's my rant! Tonight there will be a much talked about return of Labron James to Cleveland and the fans in Cleveland are ready to give him an ear full and I say why not! Labron left Cleveland for the "Love of the Money" instead for the love of the game! More and more and in every sport athletes don't seem to care about game and being the best at it all they care about is how much more am I going to get paid in Miami then I was in Cleveland, or how much more can the New York Yankees pay me than the Texas Rangers! It's no longer about where can I go to make a team better and it's no longer about loving the fans, team and city and no amount of money can take me away from that. And it's not just professional sports anymore, it's about the college athlete that goes to the highest bidder. "If you want my son to come to your school you'll have to pay him more then the other school is willing to pay". I hate what greed has done to sports in general. Professional athletes are paid millions of dollars each year to play a game and they can't seem to get by on multi-million dollar contracts, they want more. I say let's drop the salaries to a reasonable amount and just see who's there for the love of the game!!

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