*Note: A preface to this column. This is the opinion of one person, me. They are thoughts and feelings I have about professional sports and commitment.

Mirriam-Webster’s definition of the word contract is “a binding agreement between two or more persons or parties, especially one legally enforceable.” It goes on to add, “an agreement about action to be taken, a contract what needed to be done by each person.”

Contracts are a big part of our lives. We contract with people often to make changes or repair to our home or properties, or fix appliances, our cars, our recreational vehicles, and many people may have to sign contracts as they accept a job, or get into a job where labor and management have agreed to a contract which covers a large group of laborers in the same job setting, i.e. teachers truck drivers, etc.

Many contracts are binding agreements and they have lengths of terms. When the term is nearing its end, the parties can, and usually do, sit down and negotiate a new agreement for another agreed upon specified time. In almost any salaried profession, you either work for the agreed upon salary and benefits, follow the terms of the agreement, or you could legally face termination from that job.

The company you work for may offer chances for advancement or higher pay before the contract’s expiration, if initiated by the company owner, or bonuses if laborer reaches a certain tenure with the company, or for meeting levels of production or excellence on the job, but those are usually stipulated in the work agreement signed by both labor and management if made by a company and a union, or made individually by employer and employee.

All this being said, how is it that people who come to such agreements in the fields of professional sports, often times don’t live up to the commitments made in the binding agreements they, themselves, signed, to play for a specific amount of time and for a specific amount of money? So many of them want more money than they agreed upon and threaten to, or actually do, hold out while pouting in the hopes of getting paid more. A number of professional athletes sometimes see someone else from a different organization get more money in their contract, before their own contract expires, and think they are better and want to be paid more, though most of them are already making more money that they can ever spend. I have no problem with anyone wanting to be paid more, but he/she should negotiate that when their existing contract nears its end, and live up to the present contract without walking off, or striking.

How did we become a nation of wanting to negotiate to change something that we have agreed upon for a certain amount of time, before that time has expired? What happened to our signature meaning something? What happened to our handshake meaning something? What happened to our word meaning something? There should be no re-negotiating of contracts while they are still in the time frame of the agreement. Toward the end of present contract, sides should be able to get together and negotiate a new binding agreement. Idealistic? Yes! But in the words of the song, by Lerner and Loewe, from the adaptation of George Bernard Shaw’s, “My Fair Lady, “Wouldn’t it be Loverly?”

Professional sports has become ridiculous with its multi-million dollar salary contracts. Wanting even more, while still under one contract is equally ridiculous and selfish, as, again, contracts, by definition, are binding agreements between two or more parties where requirements are spelled out and there are certain defined time frames of said binding agreements. If a player signs one of those, there should be no pouting, kicking the dirt, and saying, “I won’t play, ’til I get more pay!”

I also question the way teams are constructed. My opinion is that there should be no trades in August on the “Trade Deadline,” now televised as a celebrated day in the Book of MLB. The players on each team should play for that team for that calendar season, unless they have been Designated for Assignment and certain players are no longer part of a particular team. Trades could be made in the off season, along with free agent signings. You want changes in baseball, make each team play with those in their organization for the entire season. If a player gets injured, that team replaced said player with someone from their organization. Again, trades and FA signings could be done in the off season. This could level the playing field and not let a team tell some players in their organization to pack their bags in mid-season just because they could buy a big-named player from another organization.

Teams in the NFL, NBA, and NHL have salary caps, but we often see, those caps are non- existent when teams and certain players manipulate their respective caps by readjusting other players contract and finagle ways to turn their team into one of the ten (if that many) or so “elite” teams in each respective sport.

Sports were created as a form of fitness and entertainment. They weren’t created as big business. Unfortunately, they were taken over by Big Businesses and in this fan’s eyes, it opened the door for “Super Teams” to be created, and with the exception of a few “Cinderella teams” who occasionally do beat the odds and win a championship. Sadly, for those who love their favorite sport, there isn’t a true level playing field, as teams are built by, and most championships are won by, those teams whose owners have the deepest pockets.