COMMENTARY : Money for Nothing Is Young Athlete Slogan

It was a very long drive to spring training, something in excess of 21 hours, and the family used to start singing “Old McDonald had a farm” about the time we cruised through Richmond, Va.

We covered everything from aardvarks to yaks and zebras and, while it did serve to pass time until the speed trap in Lumberton, N.C., the name McDonald soon became a pariah.

I suspect daily newspaper readers are evidencing a similar feeling about now.

Quite frankly, even if Ben McDonald, the Baltimore Orioles’ No. 1 pick in the recent baseball draft, was assured 300 victories and they were chiseling his plaque in Cooperstown this very moment, I wouldn’t care if he never throws a pitch in Baltimore. In fact, I would prefer he didn’t.

Check out a typical sports page these days and in addition to the latest rehash of the McDonald negotiations, there are stories about Tony Mandarich, Danny Ferry and Deion Sanders, to name just a few.

The one common ingredient among all these athletes is they are not athlete-ing. They are posturing, manipulating, threatening and, in a couple of cases, showing how really obtuse supposedly semi-educated young people can be.

One seriously has to consider if any of these guys has any real interest in playing the games they’ve been preparing for all their lives. They certainly don’t act it.

Can money really be so all-important to guys who don’t have the slightest idea what life is all about yet?

McDonald figures he’s worth a million bucks and $700,000 just won’t do because, although he hasn’t proven anything yet, “You have to put food on the table,” Ben’s father, Larry McDonald, reminds us.

That’s the good old American spirit of hard work, shoulder to the wheel, nose to the grindstone. Long live the merit system, pop.

Kid, take the $2 million supposedly being offered by some new league proposed by ... say, who are these people anyway?

Chances are you will never have to pitch or prove anything and you can spend all your time trying to realize your goal of achieving security.

Mandarich and Ferry, too, have terrific alternatives to the mortification of being required to play football in Green Bay for a pittance and basketball in Los Angeles.

The National Basketball Association has always done extremely well by the Ferrys, and papa Bob’s answer after all these years seems to be that they no longer can live under such a system.

It is hoped that the Washington Bullets will realize a top lottery pick someday and the wunderkind will threaten to pull a similar stunt to son Danny’s squeeze play on the Clippers.

As for Mandarich, he feels not only his record as a player but also his ability to bulk up to 315 pounds on a 12,000-calorie-a-day diet warrant anything his questionable heart desires.

While Green Bay proved just fine for the likes of Lombardi, Taylor and Hornung, Starr, Thurston, Davis, Wood and Hutson, it doesn’t meet the lofty standards of Tony, unfortunately. A pity.

Then there’s Neon Deion, who is in the process of giving the run-around to baseball and football while enamoring himself with store clerks and minor-league ball fans.

Suggestion: Trade negotiating rights to Ben McDonald for one, two or three prospects who just want to play ball. The formula has worked pretty well this year.

Ah, for the good old jerky days when athletic heroes were mainly concerned with competing and didn’t sashay around looking for something for nothing.