Down The Rabbit Hole

The potentially nice thing about having a week off is that it gives one a chance to catch up on all the news of the world that may have slipped through the cracks during the flurry of your typical workday. For me, that means actually reading the sports section, not just skimming over the scores. Nothing I found there was truly a surprise, but it certainly helped solidify my sense that the world of professional athletics is a separate and unique one.
For example: The New York Knicks needed Stephon Marbury to play, then suspended him a game and docked him nearly four hundred thousand dollars in salary after claiming he refused. Coach Mike D’Antoni asked the point guard to play because the Knicks were short-handed. Marbury insists that he never said "no," but the nature of the very strained relations between the Knicks organization and their one-time star suggests there may be more to the story. Marbury feuded with past Knicks coaches Larry Brown and Thomas, and there was speculation the team would release him before D’Antoni opened his first training camp in New York. It is, after all, just a game, but the behavior on both sides seems more reminiscent of a playground than professionals.
Just down the turnpike, New York Giants' wide receiver Plaxico Burress spent the night in the hospital last night because he accidentally shot himself in the leg. Team spokesman Pat Hanlon was just a little confounded about what to tell the press outside Giants Stadium before the Super Bowl champions left for a flight to Washington for a Sunday game against the Redskins. Burress wasn't going to play this weekend anyway, having suffered a hamstring injury against Baltimore two weeks ago, but this incident fits easily into a pattern of odd behavior. The star receiver was suspended for a game against Seattle in October and fined one hundred seventeen thousand dollars for missing a team meeting and failing to notify the team of his absence. He said he had a family emergency. He also was fined forty-five thousand dollars by the NFL for his conduct during a game against 49ers in which he abused an official and tossed a ball into the stands. However, this is still the guy who caught the winning pass in the Giants’ Super Bowl win over the New England Patriots.
As I work to manage my family's finances and avoid the vortex of the our nation's economic crisis, I find myself reading these stories with an eye toward the math. Any one of those fines would easily be a year's salary for most of the rest of us. Accidents and misunderstandings occur in all walks of life, but I wonder if the whole value system isn't just a little skewed. What would happen if I refused to teach? Would my health plan cover an accidental shooting of my own leg? As Alice once said, "Curiouser and curiouser!"