Snowboarding doesn’t make a whole lot of sense as a hobby for a professional athlete. Too many chances for knee injuries.

Shark hunting doesn’t make much sense either. Too many chances for no knees.

Those motorcycles that go 180 m.p.h.? Just ask former Bull Jay Williams, Browns tight end Kellen Winslow Jr. and Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger about the risks of hopping on one of those things. They will have some scars to show you, if you’re not too squeamish.

Sword swallower, high-wire walker, lion trainer, Bob Knight hunting buddy, asbestos clothing-line model, keeper of guns inside the Hummer’s glove compartment – no, not what you want to be if you care about your body, your salary or your life.

Flying a small airplane might or might not belong in that high-risk category. But after dying in a crash Wednesday, Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle has become the symbol of the impetuous pro athlete who flies for a hobby. What, people are saying, could he possibly have been thinking? All that money he had, and he flew it all away.

“A lot of people see us as superheroes,” Oakland pitcher Barry Zito told reporters. “The reality is, we’re regular human beings. Guys have to remember that. You can’t start downhill skiing and jumping off cliffs with bungee cords. You have to really know what you’re doing.”

To someone like Lidle, who had been under pressure for calling the Yankees unprepared for their playoff series against Detroit, New York City from the air had to be a much calmer and more beautiful place than it was on the ground. He likely wanted to get away from it all.

“No matter what’s going on in your life, when you’re up in that plane, everything’s gone,” he said in a TV interview in April.

Authorities said Lidle and his flight instructor flew over the Statue of Liberty, the Brooklyn Bridge and the Empire State Building. Why any small plane would be allowed in that airspace is probably a bigger question than why an athlete would risk his career to fly. But something apparently went wrong with Lidle’s plane, and it crashed into a 50-story apartment building on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Officials are unclear about who was flying the aircraft.

Lots of people fly single-engine planes. Keep a window open long enough at home, and you’ll hear its signature whiny engine. Most of us don’t equate the sound with instant disaster. We periodically hear of planes going down and people being killed, though rarely, it should be noted, because of drunk drivers. More often we hear of people getting into automobiles and returning in a box.

The difference is that we see pro athletes not only as a commodity but as a slice of the American Dream. And you don’t mess with the American Dream. You just don’t.

If you think of a rich athlete’s life as being the end-all, which many Americans do, then dying in a plane crash might seem like a tragic waste, to the point of being foolish

But there’s a difference between being careful and not living life.

Lidle was 34 and hardly fit the profile of a young, adrenaline-seeker. His lifestyle wasn’t considered risky or rash. There wasn’t a death wish here. There was, by all accounts, a peace wish.

At what point do you give up everything you enjoy to pursue a career? Walking across the street in downtown Chicago or Manhattan is dangerous. So is driving a car on the highway.