Yankees say groveling supplicant session with Soto and Boras "went well."

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Hot news from the Yankee News Network: The Yankees are said to be pleased with themselves. As usual.

Word from the Death Barge brain trust is that their lengthy, coffee-and-donuts talk with Juan Soto and Scott Boras this week did not erupt into, say, fisticuffs or a stabbing. Nobody's fly was unzipped. Nobody puked on the floor. Both sides spoke respectfully and cheerfully - a good time had by all! The Yankees made their elevator pitch, their water-cooler performance, their Power Point presentation and their art show oral sex skit, seeking to woo Soto to another year in the Bronx, at a price tag of probably $65 million per season. 

Once Soto chooses his future home, the rest of baseball can begin strategizing for 2025. 

Insert sigh here.

Look... we can sit back and replay the old bits, carping about the obscene amounts of money paid to athletes. But I'm 72, and throughout all of my periods of semi-awareness, I cannot recall a time when old-coots were not complaining about the money made by today's stars. It's normalcy, the way of the world.

And never once did the amounts of money made by the owners receive equal billing.  

It's impossible to gauge how much Soto deserves to be paid, unless we know how much Hal Steinbrenner is regularly banking, and those figures generally don't get reported. When people talk about Steven Cohen's wealth, the amount seems almost theoretical - closer to infinity than absolute zero. And both are paupers, compared to Elon Musk. 

So why are we so obsessed with and - at times - angry over what the players make? Yeah, some are pampered assholes, groomed as future millionaires by age 16. But the same can be said of many of the owners. Is it because the players are often Blacks or Latinos, who grew up poor or middle class, while the owners are almost always old money WASPs? Or is that too easy an explanation? In my life, I've never figured it out.

So, we sit here... 

We're Estragon and Vladimir, waiting for Godot. We're Charlie Brown and Linus, waiting in the pumpkin patch. We're Hal and Cashman, wondering if our jokes clanked and if we should have worn a tie? We're waiting for a decision, a verdict on our worthiness and wealth.

Meanwhile, good news, everybody: The Yankees are pleased with themselves.