by Barry Stagg
October 1999
Too much listening to sports radio talk shows has produced some bizarre thoughts. Listening to all of the squawking about the underpaid status of Ottawa Senators youngster Alexei Yashin is causing me to get up a full head of steam.
It seems that professional athletes in recent years have taken on the aura of a privileged social caste. Not only do the athletes aspire to this untouchable caste but so do their various associates such as player agents, umpires and referees and most unfortunately many of the reporters and announcers who make a living from professional sports.
This thought came to me when I was reading an article about one of the unfortunate major league baseball umpires who has been dumb enough to submit his resignation to his bosses during his first full year of full time employment. This fellow, whose name escapes me had been working part-time in the majors for many years and finally got a full time job after being plucked out of the equivalent of the major league labour pool last year. Despite being grateful for the full time work and the comfortable existence then $80 000 a year salary for such work can bring, never the less he sent in his resignation to major league baseball when his union boss Riche Phillips told him to do so for the summer. Lo and behold, The bosses of the National League and the American League accepted his resignation among with many others. This rather natural business act seemed to take the umpires union and the umpires by surprise. However many baseball fans seemed perplexed by the umpires reaction, since if the average fan submits his resignation to his boss in writing that particular fan usually expects it to be accepted then the fan is unemployed.
The umpires who had their resignations accepted are now out of work and the recipients of a rather healthy severance package. That is not a terribly happy situation for them but a natural result of their rather unwise decision to resign.
What annoys me is the tone of the particular interview with this umpire. The reporter was fawning in a manner that has become quite typical. Both reporter and umpire seem to be mutually deploring the audacity of major league baseball in forcing this fellow to forgo his career by resigning. They spoke at great lengths about he, his wife and his young children would be put out and he would be forced to relocate from the home he had purchased in one of these gaited exclusive communities bordering a golf course. My heart bleeds for him.
All of this brings me to the point that athletes and their flunkies are really trying to achieve that separate and privileged existence and they are trying to achieve this as their principal goal. Athletic achievement, when in championships and gaining the personal respect of fans is now a secondary issue. Becoming privileged and unaccountable celebrities seems to be the primary goal.
This past month these umpires suddenly found that rather than being unaccountable celebrities they were held accountable for their own stupid decisions to resign. Perhaps their foibles will provide a cautionary tale for others such as the singularly selfish Alexei Yashin who is having trouble struggling along on 3.5 million dollars a year and is refusing to play hockey this year for the Ottawa Senators. Hope springs eternal.
Until next month: Be proud, be prosperous.