The cheapest bidding war in baseball history is about to begin

As the baseball world prepares for the Japanese Babe Ruth, let us now praise those great men - the wisest and most courageous among us - who own. 

O, they are a special breed of man. They are wondrous in their magnitude, enormous in their value to society. Every day, they do the impossible: They own. The sit atop magnificent shit piles of money, occasionally shifting weight on their powdered fanny cheeks, to keep everything upright. We can see them up their in the clouds, sometimes deigning to tell us their plans through the assembled sportswriters. Make no mistake: They always win. They own us.

And remember that war between the owners and players - aka: employees - well, it's over. They won. 

Somehow, these pillars of capitalism managed to finagle the international posting rules between USA and Japan so that Shohei Otani's team - aka: the owner - will receive a mountain of money - about $20 million - but Otani's income will be capped at around $3.5 million, roughly the compensation for a utility infielder with bad knees. In a few years, he'll be able to cash-in, as long as he hasn't thrown out his shoulder or broken an ankle. In the meantime, I hope he can afford insurance.

Because the Texas Rangers somehow have accumulated the most international pool money to spend - $3,535,000 - that's Otani's pie-in-the-sky limit. That's because those free market owners happen to love payroll and salary caps as much as they do public-supported tax breaks. And Texas can outspend the Yankees by $35,000, clam dip money. 

To succeed, the Yankees must recruit Otani through the luster and romance of New York City, but let's be honest: If the guy loves floods and mass shootings, we cannot compete with Texas.

Of course, all this is complicated. Get out your abacus. But remember that longstanding feud between the the owners and players is a thing of the last millennium. Yeah, there are always a few overpaid and insufferable players - the media-hating David Prices and that turncoat out in Seattle, the one who jogs out grounders - but we cannot complain about how much the owners bank, because we don't get to see their bottom lines. We can only see their bottoms, winking at us from atop the shit pile.

So let the bidding war begin. The Yankees hereby bid $3.5 million and all the Cuomos one can stomach. Can it beat the annual flood of the century and Rick Perry?