Any chance I have to write about sports and politics in the same blog I am going to take...
Yesterday, Manny Ramirez declined a contract offer from the L.A. Dodgers. The offer was for one year, 25 million dollars. He had previously turned down another offer from the team for two years and 45 million dollars (with options for a third year that would have brought the value up to around 60 million).
I personally am a huge fan of baseball. But the pay that these players are receiving, especially with the current economic struggles that many Americans are facing, is getting to be a little ridiculous. I would estimate that 99.9% of the adults in America would take the opportunity to play baseball for a year for 25 million dollars. If I could manage to live comfortably off of it, I'd do it for minimum wage. That's how a player should feel if they truly love the game. But apparently, Manny is much more concerned with the money, and the fact that he has already turned down offers like this, with no other viable alternatives on the table to even justify it, tells me that he is a selfish pig.
There has been plenty of heat given to financial institutions in the media lately. There was the fallout over Citigroup's jet, the anger over the 18 billion dollars in executive bonuses last year, and most recently President Obama's order to set executive pay limits. Maybe its time for Major League Baseball to consider something similar with its out of touch players. I am hoping that it's safe to assume that others are disgusted by players like Manny Ramirez, and eventually baseball may risk losing disgruntled fans who sit at home on unemployment while its players tell America that 25 million simply isn't enough for them.
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If they players don't make the money, who will? The owners? Maybe we could nationalize the national sport and pay the fans to go to the games.
ReplyDeleteI sure would love it if that ever happened, but that's unlikely. But if player's salaries were capped, then the teams could use the left over money to supplement other costs to its fans like concessions and tickets. Manny could be perfectly well-off on say 10 million dollars a year (he'll manage), and think of how nice it would be for the rest of us struggling along on real wages if a hot dog cost less than 5 dollars...
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