33 Chilean miners are trapped underground, and will have to wait at least a couple of months for rescue. Meanwhile, a brawl between the Marlins and the Nationals on Wednesday night has gotten a lot of players talking about respect and dignity and tough jobs and such.

Check out this story (including the video) of the brawl. As brawls go, it may have been for stupid reasons, but it’s a pretty awesome spectacle. Incidentally, that link may be a blog rather than hard news, but it’s far and away the best and most straightforward account I’ve read of it yet. I have to point out one mistake the writer makes though; Gaby isn’t Batman. Look again right after he clotheslines Morgan – he hits the ground, his hat falls off, and…and he picks it up! Then dives back into the pile! He’s not Batman, he’s Indiana Jones!

Now I’m not normally the kind of guy to be like “you’re worried about such-and-such, but what about Bigger Problem X?” like nuclear proliferation, environmental protection, or providing for the underprivileged and hungry. If we all did that, nobody would ever get anything done, because yeah, there’s always something bigger and technically more important. I don’t mean to sound insensitive, but at the same time, my lawn has to get mowed sometime. There’s always bigger problems we’re not addressing when we take care of day-to-day business.

But when professional athletes talk about how hard their job is, it really just pisses me off. They’re paid thousands if not millions of dollars to play a game. I understand that it’s a level of devotion, physical fitness, discipline, and toughness that many of us simply couldn’t match, and that from a business perspective it’s worth paying them that much for the returns that are made on TV contracts, ad deals, ticket sales, and all of that. I get it. But when you stack all of that up against some guys who make a relative pittance and are now stuck underground until Christmas eating whatever can be shoved down through a 4-inch tube in the earth, well it just makes me want to do to guys like Nyjer Morgan exactly what Gaby Sanchez did to Nyjer Morgan.