My Take On the "Ownership" of Professional Athletes: Basketball vs Golf

I've been watching the Donald Sterling debacle unfold on national television over the past two weeks with amazement and with deep sorrow.  The Sterling-Clippers mess is, in many ways, the natural and logical culmination of the commoditization of basketball and basketball players, and could as easily have popped up in the pro football and pro baseball arenas.

April 27, 2014. LA Clippers protesting Donald Sterling's
racist rant by wearing their shirts inside-out, hiding
Clippers logo and name.

The tragic subtexts in the Sterling-Clippers scandal are neither subtle nor symbolic: How, in the 21st Century, in an enlightened and civilized society, can an 80-year old oligarch "own" a group of athletes collectively valued at something north of $500 million?