"I once loved this game. But after being traded four times, I realized that it's nothing but a business. I treat my horses better than the owners treat us. It's a shame they've destroyed my love for the game"
About this Quote
The bite in Allen's complaint is that it comes from someone who did love the sport and got punished for it. "I once loved this game" sets up the fall from innocence; the rest is a ledger of how modern pro sports converts devotion into inventory. Being traded four times isn't just inconvenience, it's a lesson in disposability: your talent is celebrated on posters, but your life is moved around like office furniture. Allen uses repetition and blunt nouns - "game", "business", "owners" - to strip away the romance leagues sell.
The horses line is the quote's sharpest move because it drags the "we're a family" mythology into the dirt. Horses are literal property, yet Allen suggests they receive more consistent care than the people generating the revenue. It's an ugly inversion that indicts the labor relationship without sounding like a manifesto. He doesn't name union rules or contract clauses; he makes it tactile. You can picture the stable, the grooming, the routine - and then contrast it with the cold churn of transactions.
Context matters: Allen played in an era when athletes had far less control over their careers, long before modern player empowerment and the cultural expectation that stars can dictate terms. The subtext is also racial and human: a Black superstar in a white-owned league describing how quickly admiration turns transactional. "It's a shame" lands as moral grief, not just bitterness - the real loss isn't money or a city, it's the theft of joy.
The horses line is the quote's sharpest move because it drags the "we're a family" mythology into the dirt. Horses are literal property, yet Allen suggests they receive more consistent care than the people generating the revenue. It's an ugly inversion that indicts the labor relationship without sounding like a manifesto. He doesn't name union rules or contract clauses; he makes it tactile. You can picture the stable, the grooming, the routine - and then contrast it with the cold churn of transactions.
Context matters: Allen played in an era when athletes had far less control over their careers, long before modern player empowerment and the cultural expectation that stars can dictate terms. The subtext is also racial and human: a Black superstar in a white-owned league describing how quickly admiration turns transactional. "It's a shame" lands as moral grief, not just bitterness - the real loss isn't money or a city, it's the theft of joy.
Quote Details
| Topic | Sports |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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