One of the Yankee top draft picks signed for $20,000 - less money than he would have gotten to join the Army

In the sixth round of the recent draft, the Yankees picked John Murphy - a 5'11" shortstop from Sacred Heart University. This season, he led the team in all major offensive categories and came within three hits of setting the all-time school record. He is my official hope to someday replace Derek Jeter.

To bring him on board, the Yankees will shell out an incredible bonus of... drum roll, please... $20,000.

Twenty thousand dollars. No misprint. Twenty thousand dollars.

Don't get me wrong: $20,000 is some fine beer money. We're talking bread - you know, dough, skamootz, gaboolla,  hroooooogh.  For $20,000, I'll do things that are best not described in a public post. (Contact me.) But - please correct me now - didn't we always hear about fat, lazy, prima-dona kid athletes who were being horribly overpaid by pro teams? Weren't we - as fat-chewing blowhards - entitled to whine about how American youth wants everything - all the toys and candy - without having to swim a river of excrement to slit our enemies throats, as we did?

Listen: The storied New York Yankees - a team valued at more than $2 billion, not counting the YES Network, which is worth more - just signed their sixth round pick for less money than a qualified U.S. Army recruit receives under the bonus incentive enlistment plan ($40,000.) 

This all-time Sacred Heart shortstop, Murphy, could have done better if he knew how to run a drone.

By the way, another pick - Tyler Webb - taken in the 10th round, signed for $30,000. Yes, thirty thousand.

The reasons they receive such dirt cheap bonuses are complicated. MLB has established elaborate guidelines that limit how much teams can pay for talent. Other industries call this - "price-fixing," but because baseball is a sport - not a business - the rules are different. Murphy and Webb receive such small bonuses because they are losers: Yes, they chose to stay in college and graduate.  What fools! As a result, they had no leverage. It's a wonder they're not paying the Yankees $20,000! (Moral of the story: Kids, don't stay in school.) By paying these guys so little, the Yankees can pay others more.

(By the way, here's a proposal: Next year, if the Yankees pick me in the sixth round - I can still go to my left pretty good - I will pay the Yankees $1,000! Thus, they not only will save all the money for other picks, but they'll have actually more!)

What's happened here is that the owners have fixed it, so every team can pull out its pockets and say to kids, "Jeez, we'd love to pay more, but we can't." And all teams are equal - good news for fans in such baseball hotbeds as Houston and Tampa.

Is this good, bad, whatever? I dunno. But I'm rooting for this Murphy kid to get a chance. And from now on, if a kid at Tampa buckners a routine grounder, you cannot scream about him being overpaid. I've lived to see a black U.S. President, a roving robot on Mars, and now a sixth round pick of the New York Yankees who signed for $20,000. Wow.