He'll be 80 when his new two-year deal ends. Why settle for two? He could have held out for ten! Good grief, he could croak on a laxative bar and who would know? Aids could freeze the corpse and Weekend-At-Bernies him through the All-Star break, which is the only time he comes out in public anyway. Who would guess?
In take-home pay, Bug is on a roll. His new $25 million represents a jump of about 25 percent in the last three years. He is finally receiving proper respect - Arod money, Pujols money, Selig money! The other day, I did some bathtub math and figured the Bud the Rug raked in $250 million since 1992, when he became commish. Fuck me. What a joke: He probably cashed a cool $400 million. Make no mistake: This guy is a supervillain.
Of course, the public spin is that he's responsible for all the good things in baseball. He works his tail off, doing things like... um... making rulings. And giving his one interview a year. And selecting the biggest toadie to give the his one annual interview to. And serving as official mascot for the All-Star game! And posing for his statue. He must work 80 hours a week, 52 weeks a year.
Heyyyyy, kids, let's do some math! If you make $25 million a year - by golly, your weekly paycheck comes to $481,000! And working 80 per week, that's a $6,000 per hour wage. Bug doesn't take a pee without his blackberry. He turns down the heat in his office. He phones people from his limo. He never buys women. He works his rug off.
Twenty five million per year.
Meanwhile, we Yankee fans are supposed to support the austerity plan to cut the team budget? The players are making too much money?
That's the line throughout the Yankiverse this winter. And I thank all the bloggers - you know who you are - for buying into the concept that we must spend less... We can't afford to keep shelling out money for pitchers. Nope, the Yankees must save their money...
Friends, Romans, Yankeemen, lend me your Pinstripes.
The owners are taking us for a ride. They are putting into effect a de facto salary cap by levying overwhelming taxes on rich teams - (while simultaneously arguing that higher taxes on the rich will ruin America.)
They want to deYankify the Yankees and bring an NFL-style parity to baseball. It's all about capping salaries. And we're supposed to go along with it? We're supposed to say, "Oohhhh, we can't afford that player! The Yankees have no money."
Dammit, we're Yankee fans. Since when do we care about money? This is the last bastion of make-believe wealth in America: When you're a Yankee fan, you are a millionaire. We're supposed to be obsessed with winning the World Series - not showing how cheap we can be.
Since when do the Miami Marlins outspend us?
Does anyone really think the owners are scraping for money when Bug Selig is paid $25 million a year?
How can we ever again complain about Kei Igawa, or Arod, or anybody?
This morning I saw a headline, 'Selig Gets Two Years,' and my heart leapt. Tax evasion? Malfeasance? Really bad suits? But no, Bud isn't heading to the pokey, he's just raking in more graft from the owners.
ReplyDeleteSob.
He'll be commissioner until age 100, when he makes $50 million a year, and then when he retires, they'll give him a $500 million parachute.
ReplyDeleteAnd there will be fans still crying about Carl Pavano.