Sports - the Evil Empire?

Baseball – it’s America’s pastime for more reasons than merely being a game many of us enjoy. Looking through our history, baseball has been part of the rebuilding process after many disasters, from the Great Depression of the 1930s to the aftermath of 9/11. As a fan of both baseball and history, I love how baseball has been interwoven into our culture at a deeper level than other sports I enjoy, but am not as deeply connected to as an American.

As such, I can see a stark contrast to baseball and our current economic crisis we are in. A few days ago, the Detroit Tigers – home of one of the most economically destroyed cities in the United States – reached out and signed a player for 214 million dollars, and an average of $23 million per year.

LZ Granderson, a Detroit Tigers fan who also is a senior writer at ESPN, writes a phenomenal article on this disconnect here. Yes, cities aren’t responsible for the salaries of baseball players. However, the fact that Detroit’s baseball team can pay a player more than any one police district in the city is a testament to the insanity we Americans have for our favorite sports teams. How is it that our priorities are such that the success of a city’s baseball team is more important to us than the success of our school districts and safety of our streets? Yes, we don't pay the salaries of athletes. At least, not directly. Every time we shell out $50 for a ticket however, or $6 for a hot dog at the game, $160 for a jersey, or buy the sports package on TV, we are fueling the rising salaries of players and lining the pockets of the already rich owners. We are, in fact, paying these ridiculously wealthy people with our obsession with games we would all love to play for free.

I have a confession to make: I’m a huge sports fan, and a fan of the New York Yankees (aka the “Evil Empire”) at that. However, when people complain about how much the Yankees spend, they always compare it to how much other baseball teams spend. Shouldn’t we instead be complaining about how we as a population prioritize sports to the point that baseball players and actors are worth much more than the quality of education that our students get? I'm not saying we should boycott sports or that enjoying professional athletics is wrong (there is no way on earth I myself could stop!), but perhaps some moderation in necessary.

John F. Kennedy once said,

"children are the world’s most valuable resource."

Perhaps it’s time that we begin taking heed of that remark and stop feeding the economic insanity that has become the world of sports and begin to feed our education system. The future of our nation and our world is more important than the Super Bowl, World Series, or even the World Cup.