Trade Deadline: Business vs Art

The roll call:

Jon Lester
John Lackey
Stephen Drew
Jake Peavey
Felix Doubront
Jonny Gomes
Andrew Miller

Did I miss anybody? Probably. It is early and I don't like early. I also don't like winter. Did I ever tell you that?

These are Red Sox players who got traded in the past week to set up greatness in 2015.

Or something like that.

These are players who bumped up against the uncomfortable relationship between art and business.

Sport is art. What professional athletes do, what any athlete does who is talented, is no different than what any singer/painter/actor/writer does.

Professional athletes perform at a level that is almost incomprehensible to us mortals. Just beating the odds to make it to the big leagues automatically erases millions of wannabes from the picture. Exceptionally talented people who just couldn't quite take that last step.

What is left is the cream of the crop. Crème de la crème.

These people do things on the field that blow your mind. They have to perform at a level of near perfection just to keep their jobs, and this makes being a spectator endlessly enjoyable.

But then, almost every day, somehow, somewhere, a player will make a play that defies reality. Defies gravity. Expands the boundaries of what it is assumed that human beings can do.

Watch an ESPN highlight film any day of any week. Top ten plays.

It will make you feel like an infant.

Sports is big business. BIG business, and therein lies the rub. As talented as these people are, as hard working and committed, they are always vulnerable to the vagaries of the business.

Trades. Sports is all about results, and in a more ruthless, hard nosed, quick acting way than any regular business.

You know as well as I do that there are a hell of a lot of incompetent fools who keep their jobs forever in corporate America.

I know. I work with one.

Business markets itself as if it existed in a hard nosed environment, results oriented, but in reality there is a lot of slack built in. A lot of tolerance for incompetence. A lot of sheer waste.

In professional sports, if you don't perform, punishment is swift. Even worse, if your team does not perform, you may be punished even if you are achieving at a high level.

When trade time comes around, the better the player, the better the trade bait.

"We all know it is a business." You hear athletes say this all the time. More so today than ever before, because sports are more of a business than ever before and more open about it.

Take note of how many sports executives describe the game as product.

The athletes know it is a business but still it must be bewildering to deal with being traded. Treated like a piece of meat after dedicating your life to, and putting your heart and soul into, the sport that you love.

I am wandering and meandering here because it is early and I am tired. I thought this would be a well thought out and artfully executed opinion piece about the bizarre relationship between the artiste and the businessman in professional sports.

I fell short.

Hopefully you got the point.

More importantly, hope you got the emotion.

Was there any?

I don't know.

I'm tired.