Professional Sports

So, Adam is making his way back onto the blog scene. It's time that I make my return and try and revive this suffering grade of mine. Professional sports is the topic of choice, which come to find out has been harder to write about than expected.
Anyways, I have always wondered to what degree professional athletes have had to push themselves over the years of their career. Obviously every professional has their natural talent, but natural talent needs refinement to go along with it. You cant take every person who can throw a baseball 90 MPH and make them a major league pitcher.
So the level of commitment has to be incredible for these people. Not only the physical aspect of the job, but also the commitment of being in a public eye all the time. I know for me personally that would be one of the biggest issues with being a professional athlete. I can honestly say that I can't stand a lot of sports fans simply because they dislike other teams and players simply because they play for a rival team. And I'm certainly not knocking on rivalries, because I understand it. I just think that people should just respect it and not make it out to be something more than what it is.
I've played sports since I was very young, and was pretty respectable. I just cant grasp the idea of being a professional. I have no idea what kind of motivation that would take (Hence the lack of motivation in my blogs). I mean these people must have had parents not only willing to shell out a ton of money so that little Alex Rodriguez could play for the Yankees, but also parents who must have pushed and pushed their kids to be the best thing around.
That kind of stuff worries me to some extent. I've seen it first hand myself and I've seen a lot of very good players burn out before they really got their shine because of things like motivation and parents who may have just pushed a little hard. So in the end I have to say that I truly respect these athletes no matter what side of the rivalry they are on.