All For the Buck

It's a boring Sunday, last before the end of middle school. Needless to say, I'm so excited about graduation. Yaayy! I'll have my report card marks up tomorrow or later today. FYI, I'm leaving for China on July 7th. And don't forget to tune into my radio show at blogtalkradio.com/dannyz312 tomorrow night at 8:30 PM to talk tennis!

All For the Buck

If you pay even the vaguest attention to pro sports, you probably don’t need me to tell you that professional athletes get paid a lot these days! It’s a positive fact! It is also one of the wackiest industries out there. Baseball is my sport and I’m not the expert you would find to talk soccer or football or even hockey for that matter, so I don’t have the best idea of player salary in the leagues other than the MLB. But I can certainly say that the Boys of Summer have very bulging wallets! The baseball market has inflated like blowfish in the past decade, partly because of our economic development, but you gotta figure that’s just an insignificant portion of what’s happening. The main reason is that players crave for more and give some credit to very generous General Managers and owners as well. Oh boy, believe me! They’re more willing to give than Mother Teresa! Why? We ask. Why do they deserve more today than they deserved back in the days? It seems unanswerable and to me, it is obfuscating. Historic players have performed at the same level as today’s and some even exceedingly great. Think how different is the market now than it was 10 years ago, yet 10 years ago a $100 million contract was out of the picture, unheard of, never entered the equation and off the charts.

Nolan Ryan was the first player in history to get paid $1 million/year. That was back in 1979 which I thought was still pretty crazy. Since then, the top paid players have cashed in $2 million (1981), $5.8 million, $10 million, $15 714 286 and today, Alex Rodriguez of the slumping Yankees sits on the throne by hauling in a hefty $26 million. You want something preposterously insane? There you go, A-Rod’s stratosphere contract! Getting paid $26 million to play a “game” is just plain non-sense. Sure, it’s competitive, but how about running for President? Doesn’t that make the baseball competition look like some after-school day care? Sure, baseball’s risky but how about serving in the military, or being a police officer? Which one would you rather pick? It takes skill to hammer a ball 400 feet but being an artist requires some super-capability as well (to me at least).

The market inflation has also give a lot of small-market teams headaches. It’s not fair for them to have in hand, a budget that’s a spit in the sea! The Yankees are in the hundreds of millions on their salary, but last year, the payroll for the entire Marlins organization was a miniscule $14 million. A handful of single players were paid more than that. The list includes Jeter, Bonds, Randy Johnson, Clemens, A-Rod, Sheffield… I never thought I’d say this, but I think MLB needs to put a salary cap on things to control the wild situation concerning $$$. Perhaps Billy Beane does a good job with it, but does he really like to fiddle with dimes and nickels when shopping in a lavish mall of buck-crazy free agents? I doubt it!

Toronto’s own GM JP Ricciardi has had an impact on the huge market inflation. When he got BJ Ryan and AJ Burnett $50 million bucks each, a rise in the price tag on the jobless free agents and other free-agents-to-be became inevitable. In the winter of 06-07, he does it yet again, with the rush to sign an aging, slow as snails Frank Thomas for $9 million/year. The free agency of 06-07 was absurdly crazy. Overpaid is an understatement. You’ll have to come up with a whole new set of adjectives to describe the following list: Alfonso Soriano’s “colossal” 8 years for $136 mil, Carlos Lee’s “staggering” 6 year-100, Gary Matthews’ fluke year got him a wholesome 5 years for 55 million (seriously, Matthews had a .240 career batting average up until 2006! 11 million per? Does whoever signed him need to go to a mental hospital?), Gil Meche’s luck that he was one of the few decent pitchers on the market earned him a very enjoyable $11 million/year too. The Cubs rewarded a consistent but not terrific Ted Lilly with $40 million over 4 years. JD Drew was hyped for huge payday, not to mention San Francisco now being filled with overpriced Barry’s, the latest addition (Zito) pocketing a mammoth amount of $126 million in the next while. Is this what they teach in General Managers’ class? How to write cheques with 8 or 9 digit numbers?

Vernon Wells sure wasn’t complaining either, because he was guaranteed a titanic sum of $126 million over 7 years. I can’t imagine why players get so much. Say I was a sports writer and I made $50 000 a year. It’s decent money but I’d be envious to know an average baseball athlete is paid 20 times that and a whole bunch a lot higher. Is his job 20 times harder than mine? Does he give in 20 times the effort? Does he contribute 20 times more to society than I do? No! Then how is it fair that those people are millionaires in an instant and I still have to commute to the office, do a legitimate job and at the end of the day, can’t even pool my lifetime salary together to beat his in a year or less? If it’s anything, pro athletes get 20 times better treatment than the Average Joe like you and me. Oh and plus, injuries to ball players don’t obscure them from getting paid whatever they’re “owed”. Some of it is totally unjustified, but there’s the world we’ve known for a long time now, full of gaps and differences.

I have to ask, when did this pure, simple game of baseball develop into a bidding war? Money is wrecking the game! Baseball is America’s pastime and it should be about anything but the cheques. God knows how many players even play the game for passion nowadays. Before, virtually every guy in the clubhouse had true love for the game, hustled their guts out, and couldn’t care less about the buck. To the athletes in the game right now, if you think you deserve $10 million a year (which is what nearly 100 players get paid or more), you’d better give it 200% every day! Don’t get me wrong, I admire the Reed Johnson, your Ryan Freel, Grady Sizemore and the Ichiro Suzuki, who work so hard and don’t mind living in a rented apartment. When it’s all said and done, a 7-digit salary per year still seems out of place for baseball. To the Richie Rich owners, this sport, no matter how much you invest in it, will still only be an entertainment industry and will merely affect fans like us, not the “Real World”. And next up on my salary crackdown list: movie stars.

-D