Sport Commissioners Arbitrarily Dished Out Double Punishments

Several professional sports franchises (NFL, MLB, NBA) holds its members, players and coaches to a certain standard of behavior. If these standards are violated, their Commissioners are entitled to hand out punishments that affect the income and livelihood of its members.  Their view is that certain members of society have to conduct themselves in a manner that is above the general standards set by a normal society, which is used to justify their conduct agreement clauses.

We are told young people look up to the faces of these franchises, which are the athletes and coaches; therefore they must set good examples.  We have now permitted certain businesses to control our personal lives based on the how we behave in public and in our private lives.  The moment any of these athletes or coaches stop producing they are removed from their jobs no matter how much good they have done for the public or how great they are in private. So much for the payback of the conduct clauses.

This is America where we pay people for what their produce, unless one works in government. We measure them by their effectiveness.  If we like a movie actor due to past enjoyable performances, chances are we will attend another of his or her movies.  The New York Yankees and the Los Angeles Lakers are constant winners.  People pay to see winners, not Mister Goody Two Shoes.  Kobe Bryant is paid millions to put a basketball through a hoop, not for sodomizing a hotel worker. Michael Vick cannot pull you over and issue you a ticket for speeding; Pete Rose cannot send you off to war. Ray Lewis is not able to raise your taxes.

Cleveland Browns wide receiver Donte Stallworth has been suspended without pay for the entire 2009 season as a result of his DUI manslaughter conviction. Why have we become so dumb down as a society that we allow businesses to double punish a person for tarnishing their corporate image when it has nothing to do with the performances they are paid for?

Goodell stated, “ Nor do I find that the outcome in the Florida courts is controlling in terms of determining disciplinary consequences within the NFL.”  What a liar. Please name one NFL player who was a first time offender on a DUI that got suspended for a year. These double punishments are arbitrarily dished out without due process. The Commissioners make up the punishments as they go along.

Lets say you work for a roofing company. You get pull over for going ten miles above the speed limit. How would you like it if your boss could fine you two weeks pay because you hurt the image of his company. So you think this cannot happen. The NFL fined Lewis $250,000 for conduct detrimental to the league for a misdemeanor obstruction of justice conviction regarding the slayings of two men. The defendants were ultimately acquitted of the slayings. Lewis’s action had nothing to do with football, yet the NFL was able to take $250,000 of his money.

I do not remember President Clinton being arbitrarily fined for his conduct in the White House.  No Commissioner suspended him a year from the Presidency without pay.

The people who should be held to higher standards are people who can do us harm or have the power to control us. Law Enforcement, Judges, Senior Military Officers, President Of The USA, and Elected Officials, and most of all Sports Commissioners, not corporate athletes. Let the public decide on what conduct they will tolerate.