Greed in professional sports has reared its ugly head before.

Major League Baseball didn't have a World Series in 1994 and short-circuited Tony Gwynn's shot at recording a .400 batting average that season.

The National Hockey League canceled an entire season to get its financial structure in place so it could survive.

Get ready, football fans.

The NFL is next.

With labor unrest detected a couple of years down the road, the popular belief has always been and still remains that the owners and the union will work out their differences. There is no way the lights will be turned out on such a popular sport when a huge profitable pie sits waiting to be sliced.

That stance makes a lot of sense.

Then again, the NFL has endured a labor stoppage before. The league once used replacement players just to keep playing games, then settled for a nine-game regular season just to have playoffs and a Super Bowl.

Now the owners want what they perceive is their fair share of the profits. The players don't believe they should have to give up what they got in the last collective bargaining agreement.

The players are prepared to call the owners' bluff. The owners are prepared not to flinch.

The result could very well be no NFL in 2011.

Few thought this period of free agency with an uncapped season looming would happen.

Some teams dove into the free agent market wielding open checkbooks for just about anybody.

Others seem to be unwilling to spend a dime on a free agent.

The NFL already has entered uncharted waters. No one is quite sure how this is all going to end.

What kind of salary cap will there be in 2011, if there is one at all? And will there be a 2011 season?

DeMaurice Smith, the executive director of the players' union, already has called the possibility of a work stoppage a "14" on a scale of 1 to 10.

That sounds like a line being drawn in the sand.

Having no NFL games next year would be a shame, but the versatile sports fan would survive.

Baseball pennant races, playoffs and World Series will take you through October. The NHL and NBA already will be under way by the time baseball is over.

And there will be plenty of footballs flying around — of the college variety.

Yes, Sundays and Monday nights may seem a little empty. Perhaps we can use those extra hours for a little family time.

If you really need pro football, take heart. The NFL Network will come up with something.

While NFL team owners and players bicker over how fat their respective wallets should be, the guy handing them those dollars — Joe Fan — becomes their victim.

Not me.

No more.

Never again.

Been down this road before.

There's

always something else to do.John Enrietto is sports editor of the Butler Eagle