Like gravity and the speed of light, greed is a universal constant.

It's everywhere.

Most people won't grab the last doughnut in the box.

But someone always does.

In sports these days, there are a lot of people jonesing for that last doughnut.

From baseball to football to basketball, greed is running rampant, particularly now in an economy as bad as the Sacramento Kings.

More than 600,000 people lost their jobs in January, one of the biggest single-month slashes in history.

Even professional sports leagues and franchises are feeling the pinch — or so they claim.

• Some NBA teams are in dire financial straits. Twelve teams are borrowing $200 million from the league to stay afloat.

Yet teams still are handing out big contracts to dudes like Darius Miles and Raef LaFrentz.

• The NFL cut 169 jobs, despite being the most lucrative league around.

• The Washington Redskins cut more than two dozen positions (and, no, quarterback was not one of them) in January, then turned around a month later and shelled out $154 million — $63 million guaranteed — for two players in free agency.

I'm sure those two dozen workers who are hitting the unemployment line didn't rake in $63 million among them.

If actions like those make as much sense to you as shoveling snow in sandals, then you are not alone.

Something is not right here. You can't cry "economic downturn" and trim your workforce, many of whom are like 99 percent of us and are living from paycheck to paycheck, then throw Monopoly money at free agents.

This just makes the rift between fans and players even more cavernous.

Most fans already think pro athletes are grossly overpaid.

Recent events haven't helped matters.

It's hard to feel for a guy like Manny Ramirez, who turned down $25 million a year to play baseball — well, basically to hit and not make too big a fool out of himself in left field — when you are having trouble coming up with the $200 to pay your gas bill.

Ramirez finally "settled" for that $25 million per year. Poor guy. How is he going to make it?

Even Kurt Warner wasn't above milking the Arizona Cardinals for every last dime.

He turned down a two-year, $20 million deal, then made a meaningless trip to San Francisco. Even the 49ers knew Warner wasn't really interested. He was like a teenager trying to make the girl he likes jealous by talking to one of her friends in the hallway between fifth and sixth period.

Then Warner makes a counterproposal to the Cardinals for an extra $1.5 million per year.

Wasn't he thinking about retiring? What's an extra $1.5 million then?

He wanted the last doughnut.

Mike Kilroy is a staff writer for the Butler Eagle.