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Apples to Apples (Not The Game) 6.1.06 |
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Reading the sports section is a daily habit for ol' Beefster, even as
the World Cup approaches. More and more though, I'm starting to
see something even more troubling than soccer plastered all over my
newspaper. It's these ridiculous dollar figures for athletes--not the salaries, but the silly statistics that some "clever" media personality inserts, presumably, so that we can gape at just how exorbitant athletes' salaries are (why don't we pay our teachers, policemen, firemen, soldiers, garbagemen, dog catchers/district attorneys that much?). I will be the first to say that professional athletes do make a lot of money. But when you see a stat like "$123,000 per strikeout" for Roger Clemens, or "$45,000 per free throw" for Shaquille O'Neal, take it with a grain of salt. You could do the same thing with any profession. A CEO who makes eight figures is probably somewhere in the neighborhood of "$340,000 per board meeting attended" or "$520,000 per conference hosted" or "$29,000 per cigar smoked". It's irresponsible; that's not the entirety of their job. Last year, I made "$3,000 for every trip to Chicago". I took one trip to Chicago, and I made 3,000 dollars (total) last year. Is it mathematically correct? Yeah. Does that make it creative, insightful, responsible journalism? Only if you work for ESPN. |
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Copyright MMVI, Beef |
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