A PORTRAIT OF IMPERFECTION

By Greg Evans

I am a huge baseball fan, a New York Yankees fan to be exact. I grew up not far from Yankee stadium, lived briefly in the Bronx, attended many games over the years, and spoke of the Yankees often on my morning radio show on WRCM back in the 90s. I have always supported the players on the roster though every now and then something will irritate me along with every other fan of professional sports. And that is when the big money players don't perform. And what is worse is when they don't perform year after year but continue to get paid astronomical salaries lack luster showings. Why is this the case? Because of the stupidity of long-term contracts in professional sports guaranteeing these athletes money regardless of their production. Alex Rodriguez is the one-time third baseman for the Yankees, initially thought to be a superstar in the making he has, for the most part, crashed and burned while wearing the pinstripes though his wallet hasn't taken the nose dive that his performance has and this is troubling. Here is a guy who currently is playing for a minor league baseball program coming off an injury batting .133 (which is terrible) and earning in excess of $30,000,000. Why should he deserve to make that much money despite performing worse than say someone earning $450,000, which is around the minimum wage for professional baseball?

I honestly don't have too much of a problem with athletes making large sums of money because that is what the market pays and so if you are talented enough to reach that pinnacle, then go for it. But what bothers me is those who are paid to disappoint. If a brain surgeon is regularly giving people brain damage or worse fatal injuries should they still be able to earn over $1,000,000? Of course not and they don't because they are either demoted or fired. In most sports if a coach can't seem to produce a winning team they are fired and rightly so, that is the nature of the beast. But for a team to be locked into a contract with a guy for many years for enormous sums of money for nothing is absolutely absurd. Alex Rodriguez should be cut from the team and not paid any money because frankly, he doesn't deserve $25 let alone $100,000,000. And that is coming from a die hard Yankee fan who never likes to put down members of the team. I had to get that off my chest after reading an article this morning.