Arts & Culture
Show Me the Money!
By CR / December 12, 2008
I don’t see any potential for "trickle down effect" in C.C. Sabathia’s Contract
Last week my roommate and I finally watched No Country for Old Men. The story revolves around an evil, creepy man pursuing a briefcase containing two million dollars that is found following a drug deal gone wrong by a random passerby. This man is absolutely brutal, shooting anyone who gets in his way with no mercy.
At one point, I asked my roommate, “How much money is in there? Two million?” He nodded. I followed with “Doesn’t A-Rod make that, in, like, one game? It’s pretty sad all these innocent bystanders are losing lives over two million bucks when A-Rod earns about that much per at bat.”
I love baseball. Always have. Always will. But when I heardabout C.C. Sabathia’s $161M contract with the Yankees yesterday, I was finally ready to admit for the first time, that baseball players’ salaries are beyond extravagant. They are an insulting slap in the face toward those who are being hit hard by the economy.
It never used to bother me how overpaid the best baseball players are. My grungy Boston neighbors, Berklee College of Music students, would display their typical, pretentious and anti-conformist, yet fully conformist in their own right attitudes with lines like “Jeter gets paid millions just to swing a bat around,” and I’d tell them to shut the fuck up. I still loathe those types, but now that I’m in the “real world” and not the bubble that is private college, I am not able to be as naïve about the unfairness and ludicrousness of it.
Since baseball season ended and the media shifted focus toward prospective trades, I have stumbled upon many an article calling baseball “recession proof.” I suppose that makes sense, but in a time where Obama is claiming executives should forfeit their bonuses, show humility and make small sacrifices through this economic crisis, I ask: shouldn’t baseball players do the same?
Nobody ever claimed that business executives were role models, In fact, we often indulge in portraying them as the sleazy, unethical antagonists in movies and glorify stories where a big evil corporation is held accountable for shady actions as if to make up for the fact most of us are forced to conform to office politics on a daily basis.
Baseball players, on the other hand, have to be more concerned with their image. I think it’s unfair that the Wall Street executive be vilified by everyone looking for a scapegoat, while baseball players (and their wheelin, deelin agents like Scott Boras) get away with obnoxiously demanding astronomical salaries.
I am past the point of being the typical Red Sox fan accusing the Yankees of trying to buy the World Series. I do, however, think the move on Sabathia is one of many desperate deals the Yanks have resorted to recently, worst example being, of course, Roger Clemens. Unlike other Sox fans, I’m more concerned with what Sabathia’s contract means in regards to our value system than what kind of contract the Sox will answer with. (Ok, I admit, I am very eager to see the latter, but the desire to one-up the Yankees is milder than usual.)
Despite the current economy, I agree with those who are predicting we will simply resume business as usual once this shit storm blows over. Baseball players and their agents probably recognize this and can therefore justify renegotiating contracts that span several years for their own benefit. However, baseball is one of our country’s greatest sources of pride and in a time where it’s hard for our country to hold its head up high, baseball players should act as ambassadors instead of exemplifying the greed that has proved crippling to our nation. In flashing money around this way, the Evil Empire is proving why the city of New York is perceived by terrorists as the focal point of everything wrong with our country; it is ostentatiousness and demonstrative of shallow American values.
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you’re missing the free-market implications of the sustainability of sports as a vehicle of entertainment – as you put it, "…baseball is one of our country’s greatest sources of pride…"
a basic supply/demand graph will show you that, supply held steady, price cannot fall unless 1) demand falls before it or 2) some outside force acts on it, i.e. government oversight of such an issue as the bailout package and who it should be alotted to. in the case of financial institutions, lenders, and other equity-sales based firms, their essential failure means a drastic fall in demand for their goods/services – if public opinion and government regulation had not stepped in to force top executives into significant paycuts and the forfeiture of exorbitant bonuses, overall demand would have eventually let the market forces adjust them.
baseball is different, because it will always be in high demand, always. i know i don’t need to remind you that many Americans, mired in financial woes, will often increase their participation in sports viewing/spending, if not only because it is a way to disconnect from such a twisted up professional world, but also because it lets us indulge in fantasy, live vicariously through others, and feel a sense of excitement/pride/comradery. CC gets paid 161 stacks because a) the demand is obviously there, and b) it DOES produce a trickle-down effect…ticket sales, jobs within the franchise, investment in future opportunities, etc…even American happiness. As far as I can tell, the only negative implication would be the average Joe becoming priced out of decent seats due to rising prices, but hey, that should just tell you yet again – demand for baseball (/football/basketball/fill in the blank) will never wane.
1. It is really difficult for Sawx fans to make the old "Evil Empire" argument anymore. With a payroll at over $130 million (really, Julio Lugo at 9.5 million?) it seems as if Boston has lost the "moral" high-ground in this argument. As an aside, despite the Yankees’ splurge on pitching this off-season, they will actually be lowering their total payroll while keeping their prospects. Actually the Red Sox have been the model for this type of organizational structure with great success over the last handful of years (holding onto Pedrioa, Youkilis, Lester, etc…while also bringing in Becket, Dice-K and the lot).
2. My own baseball biases aside, I couldn’t quite understand the following:
"In flashing money around this way, the Evil Empire is proving why the city of New York is perceived by terrorists as the focal point of everything wrong with our country; it is ostentatiousness and demonstrative of shallow American values."
Really? Does Al-Qaeda get the YES Network in the caves of Waziristan? Such a statement not only grossly misunderstands the very nature of jihadist rhetoric and actions, but is a really shallow-seeming excuse for anti-Western sentiment worldwide. We are shallow and have warped values…we get, we get it. Woops, there’s a new Keanu Reeves flick…guess we get what we are asking for!
Raising the issue of the ridiculous nature of baseball salaries is one thing. It is an enormous leap of logic to view such developments as being representative of values that would inflame terrorism and extremism. Can we blame Maccabi Tel Aviv’s basketball success for angering Hezbollah?
I’ll end on this note…always remember Babe Ruth’s response to being asked how he could demand a higher salary than Herbert Hoover. His simple response, "I had a better year than he did."
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