This e-mail is in response to your comments in the column regarding the salaries paid to professional athletes (Mike Bianchi, Running off at the typewriter, Oct. 7).
You objected to the “obscene guaranteed contracts given to professional baseball and basketball players,” but you went on to report, “. . . you’ll never hear me complain about how much football players make.” You continued to explain that, “These guys literally put their necks on the line every week — not to mention their knees, shoulders and, yes, spleens. They deserve every last million they can get for the maimed, mangled bodies they will have by the time they turn 50.”
Although I have played and enjoy these games, they are just that: games. To suggest that any of them in any sport deserve the multimillions of dollars they are paid because of the potential for serious injury demonstrates a lack of respect for your readers’ intelligence and their real-life experiences.
You might want to consider how the men and women of this country are maimed, mangled, and, yes, killed every day in Afghanistan and Iraq for a salary that is only a percentage of yours. Please keep these real-life situations in perspective when you ramble on about professional sports.
Gary Janz
Leesburg
