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Buzz spite sneer of snark demands

But the tick of obscene salaries just keeps on ticking in professional sports, the one sector of the economy I know of, except for maybe Internet pornography, that still dances merrily along in the bubble of its isolation from the real world. As we try to figure out not just what is fundamentally wrong with the American economy but with America itself, look no further than what is being shelled out to the men who play with bats and balls roughly eight months out of the year (after all, they need their rest after such taxing work).—Buzz Bissinger

This is the sick sort of brainwashing team owners perform on us through the media. They think that a player has played for well over a decade professionally. He’s endured the lows, the doubts, the long bus rides, the aches and pains while working his butt off all to be the very best at what he does. The team employing him will use every device the collective bargaining agreement allows to postpone the day the player qualifies for salary arbitration and free agency. He watches players performing half as well as him and get paid many times over what he earns.

The player survives all this, he avoids the attrition that happens to so many and makes the point in his career where he can see what his skills honed through many years of hard work is worth—and what happens?

He has to endure what he hears on the radio, in print and on the web about how he should show a little loyalty to the very fans who will one day reject him and subsidize some of the richest men in the country.

In this environment the major league cartel demanded $611 million of money that could be allocated to services such as these for MLB to set up shop in D.C.

It has been common knowledge for a while now that communities that build publicly financed stadiums for professional sports teams do not derive any real financial benefit from so doing. In the case of cities such as Minnesota and St. Louis stadiums are only 15 years old or less and not even fully paid for before teams have their avarice-oozing hands out for more handouts ...

One would think well over a half billion smackers of free money plus the generated revenues that would ordinarily be used to offset costs of construction, maintenance, amortization and the like would be good enough for these bottomless pits ...

Claiming that the ballpark that they didn’t pay for but get to keep the lion’s share of the revenues for wasn’t completed in time—not only are they not paying their rent ($3.5 million ... a little more than what they're paying Chad Cordero on the 60-day DL), they’re demanding $100,000 a day in damages dating back to the beginning of March ($14.5 million as of this writing).