I really shouldn’t be writing this.
I shouldn’t be writing this because it’s 2022. Last Chance U exists, Outside The Lines, or OTL, has been doing investigative journalism on ESPN since 1990. This isn’t the old days of Mike Royko lifting the veil off of corruption in Chicago and making fun of his beloved Cubs after another ten game losing streak. Royko has been gone since 1997, the Cubs have won their World Series, and every veil has been lifted since then…to the point where the world believes they know everything.
Yet they don’t, and sports fans are the worst at this.
Mind you, fans have always been overly emotional. That will happen when beer and frustration is involved.
But it’s gotten worse. Years ago, a heckler was going after Pete Rose all game long. After the game, Pete followed the guy to his car, then got into the back seat and challenged him to fight in front of the guy’s wife. Absolutely humiliated the guy. Odds are he didn’t hear from the guy again.
Right or wrong, that was the way it was handled. It was one person facing down one person. Different day, of course. Pete would be giving up a third of his bank account now.
But it’s not one on one anymore…it’s one on infinity. Social media allows for anonymity. Any one person can have numerous accounts and act as mean, nasty, and tough as they wish they were. They love to swing, but they really can’t fight.
The problem is that they are threatening kids now. EJ Liddell, a then sophomore from Ohio State, which meant he was 19 years old, had racial threats from hundreds of thousands of anonymous idiots who no doubt lost money when Ohio State lost to Oral Roberts. That said, you are a coward if you are threatening kids, and a whole other level of antiquated idiot if you are using racial threats in this era. Luckily, Liddell used his voice to root this problem out, so I’ll leave it at that.
But what causes this anger always goes back to money. Fans have always believed athletes make too much money, and that goes back to when Babe Ruth made $80,000 in 1930. There is this crazy thought process that they are getting paid millions to play a kid’s game.
They would be right if it was a kid’s game. It’s far from it now. The game is the easy part. I always tell people to step into the shoes of the athletes for a moment. The immediate answer is that they wish, but no, they really don’t.
Imagine getting a small signing bonus for a major league team, then going to single A ball, where you make 11 grand a year? AA is $12,600, and AAA is $14,700. Imagine having an NFL dream and playing in leagues where you must sell tickets to the games. Imagine playing basketball in Europe and hoping you get an NBA tryout.
529 players play in the NBA, 1696 play in the NFL, 903 play in the NHL, 631 in MLB. That’s under 4000 people playing professional sports in the United States out of 333 million. If you want to know where the ego comes from with professional athletes, that’s a good place to start. If you are good enough to make it to the very top, then you earned your ego.
You also earned your money. Every dime of it.