What's That Got to Do With The Price of Champagne in Boston?

Sixty seconds ago, the Boston Red Sox won the World Series, and now a team of grown adult men are jumping up and down together on a field.Three hours ago, I attended an open house at Georgetown University for their Masters degree program in urban research and planning - a program equivalent in cost to the bottles of champagne now being poured on the field-jumping men, who will make more money from this one evening of swinging a piece of wood at a ball than I could spend on four years of education in how to build cities - how to plan for peace and sustainability and spatial harmony in the real, lasting, structural world.Of course it isn't fair, and of course it doesn't make any sense, but there is no doubt in my mind that at some point during the degree program in urban research and planning there will ironically be a discussion about how to build stadiums, how to design fields and parks and pitches and rinks and courts for more men to make more money on than I or any other academic will ever see for the effort of creating the spaces that make the games possible.It's also a safe assumption that the inflated cost of the courses and books and fees are not lining the pockets of the program directors or professors or research assistants, but to the marketing and travel expenses and physical trainers and nutritionists necessary to keep the university sports program operating smoothly.What I'm really saying - my true thesis here - is that it's too bad the Washington Nationals didn't win the World Series, because in that case I would be far too busy raucously celebrating (and enjoying public spaces conceived by an urban planner) to mope around, complaining about how well paid the players are and how expensive higher education is.Well played, Boston. Well played.