Yankees Add Perspective to Sports and Life
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by user I am a cpcp
Some things really make me question my love of professional sports. Today that's happening more than ever as the New York Yankees have again made me think twice about whether or not I should be supporting this superfluous industry.
The event that brought this particular dose of guilt is seeing the news that the Yankees broke ground on their new stadium which will cost an estimated one billion dollars.
Let me say that again... one billion dollars.
Do you have any idea how many people a billion dollars could feed? How many homes one billion dollars could build? How many lives one billion dollars could save?
But this particular one billion dollars is being spent on a place to play a game. A glorified Monopoly board. The world's most expensive playground.
This honestly almost brings me to tears.
I was at a Cleveland Indians game late last year when they put on a tremendous fireworks show after the game. The do fireworks shows pretty much every Friday night now at Jacobs field, each one costing around $150,000.
The baseball fan in me asks why don't they save up all that money and spend it on some players? The humanitarian in me asks, why not send that money to a third world country?
I've grown pretty immune to player salaries. I know they get paid literally millions more than our teachers and doctors for playing a game. But people buy tickets, tickets pay the salaries, so it all works out in the end, right?
Something is just starting to not seem right about all of this. Maybe it's that number. One billion dollars. That number keeps going through my head.
One billion dollars on a baseball stadium.
A place for people to go and drink beer and curse at these overpaid superstars for a night's entertainment when there are millions of people out there that can't afford a loaf of bread.
It really is quite absurd.
Most of the times when I start feeling guilty about being a pro sports fan, it goes away in a few hours, maybe in a day or two. But I don't know. That number.. one billion dollars has hit me pretty hard.
Maybe just hard enough that this time, I won't forget.
Date
Wed 08/16/06, 2:34 pm EST
