America- The land of misfit toys and f****d-up priorities
A baseball player will make $70 million per year while teachers have to buy their own supplies. WTF is wrong with this picture?
When somebody says it’s not about the money, it’s about the money.
H.L. Mencken
People are strange: They are constantly angered by trivial things, but on a major matter like totally wasting their lives, they hardly seem to notice.
Charles Bukowski
As much as I love sports and the drama it can provide, I have to admit to being mightily confused sometimes. I was gobsmacked when the Los Angeles Dodgers signed all-World pitcher and outfielder Shohei Ohtani to a 10-year, $700 MILLION contract over the weekend. How is that even possible in this world?
I wouldn’t pay God that much…and I don’t even believe in Her.
Don’t get me wrong; I love baseball. I’ve been to over half the major league ballparks in America, from Miami to Seattle and from Boston to Toronto to San Diego. The only thing I enjoy more is a soccer match, and I’ve been to Major League Soccer matches from San Jose to Vancouver to Toronto to Kansas City and several other cities. Erin has indulged my desire to travel for sports more than I deserve.
I think I can speak with no small amount of authority when I look at Ohtani’s contract and ask…WTF??? Seriously??? Has America completely lost its perspective on what matters???
Yes, that’s a rhetorical question.
How is it possible to justify paying a baseball player an average of $70 million/year when teachers are buying supplies out of their own salaries, people are living under bridges, and millions of Americans can’t afford healthcare? In what world does that sort of ridiculousness make sense?
Shohei Ohtani agreed Saturday to a record $700m, 10-year contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers.
The deal was announced after days of speculation over where the unique, two-way star would continue his career after six seasons with the Los Angeles Angels.
“This is a unique, historic contract for a unique, historic player,” Ohtani’s agent, Nez Balelo of CAA Sports, said in a statement. “He is excited to begin this partnership, and he structured his contract to reflect a true commitment from both sides to long-term success.”
Ohtani’s total was 64% higher than baseball’s previous record, a $426.5m, 12-year deal for Angels outfielder Mike Trout that began in 2019.
And if he’d held out for more, he probably would’ve gotten it, perhaps from the New York Yankees or the Toronto Blue Jays. Who knows? If the Saudi Public Investment Fund owned a Major League team, Ohtani might’ve been offered Oman, Dubai, AND Bahrain.
Then again, how much is enough? I suppose $70 million/year will set Ohtani up quite nicely, no? He’ll likely never have to worry about where his next Big Mac comes from.
Ohtani’s contract is so huge that $680 million of the contract will be paid out in “deferrals,” meaning that the Dodgers will be paying Ohtani long after the ten years have come and gone. Ohtani didn’t want the size of the contract to hamstring the Dodgers’ ability to attract and pay other talented players.
Most baseball fans are familiar with “Bobby Bonilla Day,” which falls on July 1st. Bonilla, who hasn’t played in the majors since 2001, agreed to the Mets’ offer to buy out the remaining $5.9 million of his contract.
Instead of a lump sum payment, Bonilla agreed to take payments of nearly $1.2 million every year starting on July 1st, 2011, and ending in 2035. Every July 1st, he gets a payment from the Mets of $1,193,248.20. Ohtani’s agent no doubt took a lesson from Bobby Bo.
His $70m average salary is 62% above the previous high of $43,333,333, shared by pitchers Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander with deals they struck when signing with the New York Mets. Ohtani’s average salary nearly doubles the roughly $42.3m he earned with the Angels….
Ohtani has redefined modern baseball since he chose the Angels as his first major league team. Nobody has come close to matching his simultaneous achievements at the plate and on the mound, becoming one of the majors’ elite players in both roles whenever healthy. Along the way, he’s become one of the most marketable athletes in the world, sure to boost ticket sales, TV ratings and sponsorship revenues wherever he goes.
He was a unanimous AL MVP in 2021 and 2023 – he finished second in 2022 – winning this year despite injuring his elbow in late August and an oblique muscle in early September.
Ahead of his 30th birthday on 5 July, he has a .274 average with 171 homers, 437 RBIs and 86 stolen bases along with a 39-19 record with a 3.01 ERA and 608 strikeouts in 481 2/3 innings. Ohtani has 34.7 Wins Above Replacement (WAR), per Baseball Reference.
Yeah, the kid’s pretty good, and by the time he’s 40, he’ll have a net worth higher than some Third World countries. That’s after a few seasons of being severely underpaid…by baseball standards.
Ohtani earned $42,269,259 in his six seasons with the Angels. After receiving a signing bonus of $2,315,000 with his initial deal, he had salaries of $545,000, $650,000, $259,259 (in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season), $3m, $5.5m and $30m.
Yeah, we should all stand to be so underpaid. Unfortunately, playing for the Angels meant being the star on a team that perenially underperformed and had virtually no chance of making the playoffs. Traveling across L.A. from Anaheim to Chavez Ravine to play for the Dodgers means he’ll be playing for a team stocked with stars and is a legitimate contender to win a World Series title every season.
(The Dodgers’ 2024 payroll may well be larger than the Gross Domestic Product of North Dakota.)
All that’s fantastic news if you’re a Dodgers fan, and as much as I like Dodger Stadium (I’m not a Dodgers fan- seriously, when are y’all going to do something about the crappy parking lot?), I’m a Giants fan, so y’all don’t want to know about the spell I hope to put on the Dodgers in 2024.
Dodgers fans should probably prepare themselves for $50 beers and $20 Dodger Dogs…which aren’t even that good, IMHO.
Despite my disdain for the Dodgers, I’m more interested in figuring out how America’s priorities became so thoroughly FUBAR’d. How did we come to inhabit a place where we see nothing wrong with a baseball player making $70 million a year even as teachers buy supplies out of their salary?
Baseball players, like any professional athlete, are entertainers- but what they contribute is temporary and ephemeral. Whatever enjoyment we might get from a baseball game lasts only a short time. Nothing baseball players do is permanent.
The people who do leave lasting impacts- teachers, scientists, doctors, etc- all earn significantly less than most professional athletes.
(Not only that, over $2 billion a day rolls through the front door of the Pentagon. We can kill and destroy with the best of them, and our military is NEVER lacking the funding it needs. Tell me THAT isn’t f****d up.)
Look at all that and tell me our priorities aren’t thoroughly FUBAR’d.
I realize I’m pissing into the wind here. Yes, nothing’s going to change, and I’ll only end up soaked and smelling awful. That won’t stop me from wondering how we got to this point, though.
I’m not against valuing and rewarding talent, but shouldn’t we be willing to do that across the board? How does it make sense that a fabulously talented baseball player makes $70 million/year and an equally gifted teacher pulls in $70,000/year if they’re lucky? Especially when there’s no doubt about who has the opportunity to make a more profound and longer-lasting impact.
Shohei Ohtani can now afford to buy a school if he were so inclined. Most teachers can barely afford a ticket to see him play. There’s something wrong with that equation, don’tchathink?
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