Michael Ventre

In contracts these days, there are clauses for just about anything. If you want to get paid a bonus every time there is a lunar eclipse, you can ask for that. If you want a potential employee to keep his hair short and his face clean-shaven, you can ask for that. When Van Halen toured, the boys used to demand that no brown M&Ms be present in the candy bowl of their dressing quarters.

In fact, the only limits of such requests lie in the imaginations of both parties. If you can dream it up, you can include it in a contract, as long as the other side goes along.

But no contract will protect everyone from everything. Some demands, even if they’re embedded in an ironclad document, are meaningless because human beings are involved and life is uncertain.

Sure, the Yankees might have protected themselves if they had a clause in Corey Lidle’s contract that forbade him from flying an airplane. Much more important, perhaps Lidle would not have flown the plane at all had there been such a clause in his pact with the Yankees. The contract he signed with the Phillies, which the Yankees inherited when they traded for him at the deadline, did say that he or his heirs would forfeit any payments if he were injured or killed while flying a plane. But because the season was over and he was a free agent, Lidle wasn't under any such strictures.

But how far does a sports team take that type of approach? And realistically, how much compliance could anyone expect when young men with a passion for excitement and a lot of disposable income are involved?

What exactly is a dangerous activity? If you’re a professional athlete, should you be forbidden from using a table saw in your garage? Should you not be allowed to fool around with your kid’s skateboard in the driveway? Is home repair out of the question when the roof leaks and a ladder is handy?

And because Lidle’s love for flying is at issue here, let’s take it a step further and list any and all possible activities that might involve more than just low to moderate risk:

YANKEES' LIDLE DIES IN PLANE CRASH Yankee stars attend memorial for Lidle Ventre: Teams can't stop all risky behavior Celizic: Baseball bruised but will go on Opinion: This was different than Munson Lidle's father heard about crash on TV Fact file: Key facts about Lidle |   Images List of sports figures who have died in crashes Readers react | Share your thoughts |   Discuss

I write for the Internet. I have all the space I need. And I still don’t have enough room to list all of them.

What happened to Lidle was a terrible accident. Certainly there will be people pondering his fate, wishing he had waited until he was more experienced before he ventured into New York City airspace. Naturally, there will be those who will suggest if there had been a clause in his contract that absolutely listed flying as a no-no, he might have grounded himself until after his playing career was over.

I just can’t look at it that way. Sometimes life takes horrible and unexpected turns, no matter how much you try to legislate against it.

The other most recent example is Ben Roethlisberger. At first, when he wiped out on his motorcycle, I thought it could have been prevented had the Pittsburgh Steelers demanded in writing that he refrain from riding. Now I realize that would have been silly. One of two things would have happened: The team would have caved in during negotiations because they really wanted to lock down his services and his side wouldn’t budge on that point; or they would have all agreed to the clause and yet Roethlisberger might have ignored it anyway, gotten into an accident and the team probably would have refused to punish him because it wanted to maintain goodwill over a long-term relationship.

Fortunately, Roethlisberger is still alive.

Look at Jeff Kent, whose contract with the Giants prohibited him from riding a motorcycle. It didn't stop him from riding, he got hurt and originally lied about it.

It’s up to the individual to decide how much risk to invite into his life. Even then, there are no guarantees. Of course, some hobbies test fate much more seriously than others, but there’s no escaping life.