The Boston Red Sox, Saskatchewan Roughriders, and Jose Reyes are good examples as to what is wrong with professional sports.
The Riders didn't like head coach Greg Marshall, so they quit. Some of them have the audacity to lash back at fans who have been disgusted with this play for the last four months or so. I wonder if those same players would understand the situation a little better if they went to a fast food outlet and were told by the worker taking their order that he or she simply, "...isn't prepared to work right now. So I can't process your request." Every time a Roughrider player has said that they 'were not ready to play', I think of some other person making a lot less money in the service industry answering a customer's request with, "I'm not ready to work today."
I'm not sure what happened to the Red Sox to collapse the way they did, but I also know that when you are paying players eight digits a year to play baseball, the last thing I want to hear about as a fan is 'my shoulder hurts', or 'I'm going through a divorce'. Suck it up buttercup. Part of being paid that kind of money is being able to excel despite personal adversity. That could mean personal issues away from the game or it could mean a minor injury. Focus on the task at hand and do your job. If there was ever a clear example as to why professional sports contracts should NOT be guaranteed, the Boston Red Sox are it. What are the chances John Lackey and Carl Crawford get brought back if the Red Sox didn't have to pay them for the next gazillion years? Lackey had one of the worst seasons a Major League pitcher has ever had in the last 100 years. That's no exaggeration. And, for Crawford...well, karma's a bitch (thanks Ryan Duthie for that quote). I'm not suggesting the Red Sox (who are my favorite team) should be let off the hook for signing these turkeys, but organizations have no recourse if the employee doesn't perform to the standard expected. I work in sales. If my sales took a 75% nosedive, there's a pretty good chance I'd be let go. And, justifiably so. I wonder if Theo Epstein regrets hanging on to Ryan Westmoreland, since that was his hang up on acquiring Roy Halladay a year and a half ago...
Finally, on the Reyes front, I was watching one of the highlight shows last night and, apparently, the guy asked to be pulled from the game after going 1-for-1 because he wanted to make sure he won the batting title. That should tell you all you need to know about this man's character. Yet, he's a free agent and some stupid team will give him 20-million dollars a season (maybe Boston).
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