The Diamond and The Street

Readers: I plan on making a concerted effort to post more. I’m currently working full time in Washington DC this semester and it’s been more of a time-suck than I thought: to save on exaggerations, it’s been a pretty intense time. I’ll be posting more frequently and even want to try to link some sports topics with political themes.

The current proposal to “bailout Wall Street” (which was always a stupid and un-sellable way to phrase it) includes some precedent setting aspects. One of these is the idea to put caps on executive compensation. I know what informs the idea: Stan O’Neal, former CEO of Merrill Lynch, puling down $161.5 million in exit-pay after reporting a $2.24 billion loss, six times its forecast and the biggest quarterly loss in the company's 93-year history does seem odd, and many other cases of the same likeness. But it’s telling of the situation we’re in to be having that type of government control on the table.

What if applied that logic to sports? A-Rod makes $28 million a year, and the average baseball player made $3.15 million. It’s even higher in basketball. Some people thinks it’s insane for athletes to be making what they do. But I say, ‘Hey, these guys are the best of the best; they work all year to tune their bodies to performance machines. Then there’s the entertainment and escapism value. Plus look at the revenue an A-Rod or a LeBron bring in.’ Still, I see the debate.

Let’s go a step further and make it more akin to Stan O’Neil type compensation. A-Rod performs and pretty well deserves his paycheck. But Carl Pavano? Pavano made $39.95 million for 26 starts over 4 years. Like O’Neal’s reign over Merrill, Pavano drove performance downward and did hardly anything to increase the value of his team. Unlike in football, where contracts are far from guaranteed, when baseball players sign the line they’re salary is all but assured—even if they get injured. This partly speaks to the power of the players union in the MLB and the weakness in its gridiron counterpart. But does the societal argument hold? Is it unfair, unnerving, or perplexing? Should something be done about it? It’s not as if Congress hasn’t involved itself in baseball’s business before.

Here are other stupid and even funny examples of baseball contracts:
- L.A. rewarded Darren Dreifort with this deal in the winter of 2000 -- despite a 39-45 career record with a 4.28 ERA. Dreifort responded with one full season -- as a reliever, in '04 -- nine wins, 15 losses, one save, a 4.64 ERA, several trips to the DL and an early retirement.
- As a free-agent, Colorado signed Danny Neagle to a five-year $51.5 million deal. He had a 5.57 ERA through the first three years of this deal before surgery knocked him out of the '04 campaign. The Rockies cut him when he was caught, zipper-down, with a $40 prostitute.
-Houston’s Charlie Kerfeld asked for $110,037.37, matching his number 37 jersey, to pitch in 1987. He also required 37 boxes of orange Jell-O in the deal. But Kerfeld, who was caught eating ribs in the dugout that season, battled weight and injury problems and was sent down to the minors

There are plenty more.