And why not? Cashman's reaction was typical of the way sports people treat incursions by the real world into the sports community--an inevitable tendency to say that athletes' personal lives, or higher ideals, or commitments to virtues that aren't sports-related are forever more significant.

On Monday, Danny Ainge made a decision similar to Rivera's. In his fourth season as coach of the Phoenix Suns, Ainge quit because he felt that his coaching duties were detracting from his relationship with his wife and children.

"I love coaching, but anyone can coach," Ainge told the AP. "My wife has just one husband and my children have just one father. Some of you may think I'm jumping ship. I don't believe I'm jumping ship. I'm diving overboard to save my family."

Commentators have been unanimous in their praise for Ainge's decision. That's not surprising, since sports media always react in like fashion when the relative significance of the sports world is called into question.

When middleweight Stephan Johnson died Dec. 5 from injuries suffered in a Nov. 20 bout in Atlantic City, the outpouring of grief that greeted his death was appropriate, but was consistently couched in terms of the minor magnitude of boxing to life.

Here's an excerpt from the AP's account:

"Johnson's mother said she had asked her son to leave boxing, but he loved the sport too much for that.