Why do we defend extremely well-paid athletes so much?

Something that boggles my mind on a daily basis...

In the great and underseen Robert De Niro film, “A Bronx Tale,” a young Yankees fan in the 1950s rides around on a bus with his dad while waxing poetically about Mickey Mantle. His dad is a big fan too but most likely wouldn’t move waters for a baseball player like his son would. As many remind him, Mantle isn’t paying for your school, your food, or your rent. He’s a baseball player, not a martyr.

Later on in the film, the young man befriends a neighborhood gangster named Sonny (Chazz Palminteri, who also wrote the play the film was based on). When the kid starts going on and on about Mantle and how he’s the best and what not, Sonny drops some sage advice on him.

“Mickey Mantle doesn’t give a shit about you.”

I could be paraphrasing (sorry Chazz), but it rounded up to meaning these are employees playing a sport, not worrying about the public who adores them. The words have been burned, and then reburned, into my brain over the past 25 years--as I went from modest sports fan to rabid diehard addict, and thus pinballed in between the two personas.

The truth is we all get romantic about baseball and other sports. It’s part of the addiction and appreciation process. But at some point, the cord is unplugged and you begin to understand the world doesn’t live and breathe on professional, high-paid baseball players competing in a game in early May. To each his own, but I am beginning to have a hard time understanding the hard line people take in front of a person they don’t know, really understand, or will even think about after he leaves their team.

For example, the current St. Louis Cardinals whipping boy is Paul DeJong, and for good reason. The shortstop is currently hitting .114 yet supplies the team with solid defense at a crucial position. The team has succeeded so far in the 2022 season (16-10 record), but will need a better-hitting shortstop than .114 to win the division or even hope to stand nose to nose with the Braves or Dodgers.