The world is being held accountable for their actions, ....this is evident by the number of lawsuits, or the pushy mothers that want public education to make their less then "genetic" offspring Einsteins. So why do we allow athletes to get away without being held accountable for their performance on and off the field?

First...athletes are paid a ton of money and in many cases hold the fans and the owners over a barrel especially when represented by greedy, slimy agents such as Scott Boras. Owners, especially in major league baseball are forced to bid-up the going price of free-agents and have to resign average players at money that the average worker in American will not even come close to making in their entire working career.

Greedy athletes demand high money, agents become slimier and the fans only end up paying more for the price of a cheap seat, warm beer and a hot dog that they will burp up for the rest of the game. Yet the athlete all too often underperforms. Athletes get hurt and still we pay. Athletes sit on the bench, and still we pay. Athletes get cut from teams and yet the team might still owes millions to these aged players that made their fame while on steroids.

So why not make them accountable? Why not include contracts that have performance standards in place and when an athlete fails to perform, for whatever the reason......they return a portion of their salary. For instance, in the recent free-agent frenzy in baseball for "average" pitchers...owners are shelling out millions for players with barely a .500 win/loss record. Well, go ahead and shell out the millions but guarantee yourself that when the athlete underperforms, as many will.....that their salary will be reduced accordingly.

Now that reduction in pay saves the owner money, right? Wrong......the owners are also making money and cheating the fans so give the "accountability clause" and the money involved back to the community in which the major league team plays in. In most cases, that team held the town over the fire pit and demanded partial payment for a new stadium or the likes. So the clause should demand that underperforming athletes “rebate” their salary to the community, to the schools, fires, police and civic improvement. Let the community benefit not only from the performance of athletes in terms of a winning team but also benefit from the underperformance of their star athletes in terms of accountability and a rebate of their salary.

Athletes make big money, so hold them accountable. Athletes live in a community, so make them support that community. Owners use a community, so make them apart of that community.

You don't set the pay because you don't own the team.

Maybe teams should be socialized, so they are owned by the people of the city that hosts them, and then people could set the pay scales via some kind of vote or popular feedback mechanism. Then, it'll really be "our Dodgers" or "our Lakers".