They say the deeper that physicists delve into quantum particle theory, the less sense anything makes.
So it goes with baseball.
According to Cot's Baseball contracts, here are the 15 richest players in history.
According to the Internet, the Yankees have offered Cody Bellinger a five-year, $150 million deal, which his agent - Scott Boras - won't even use to wipe his perfumed butt with.
Unless some other team beats the offer, Bellinger will slot in somewhere around 77th on the all-time Decadent Wealth list. (See below.)
For most of my life, in contract disputes, I always favored players over owners. It's a low ethical bar. Players battle on every pitch, every play from scrimmage, every face-off. No owner ever got carted off with a broken jaw or revived at midfield with a defibrillator, while teammates prayed.
But lately, it's getting hard to make sense of the money in sports. The idea of millionaire quarterbacks pretending to attend college classes, bestriding campuses like Olympian gods... something's gone really wrong. And the money long ago became obscene.
Soon, Bellinger will land in the all-time rich list. He'll rightfully fall below Hall of Famers like Miguel Cabrera ($152 million) and Derek Jeter ($189 million), but beat Mike Trout ($144 million) and Max Scherzer ($130 million.) And he'll be far behind Wander Franco ($182 million, though I suspect those payments are in limbo.)
Let's disregard quantum physics. It makes no sense, probably never will.
As John would say, "That's baseball, Suzyn."
Next year, around now, baseball will be approaching a huge labor lockout. There will probably be no spring training, no opening day - and maybe, no season.
Right now, it's like a civilization-killing asteroid, visible in the night sky, which we're being told to ignore.
Sorry. I can't. Don't mean to hang this on Bellinger. It's not his fault. But as the billionaires become trillionaires - (see Musk, Elon) - they are destroying sports in America, (which, by the way, is also to destroy America.)
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4 comments:
Many of the highest paid players in history should not be among the highest paid players in history. Fuck it, why not Cody?
We are in the era of mediocre millionaires, after all. Kyle Tucker? I don't know whether to laugh or cry.
I love this story. Proof that Kay is, indeed, an asshole.
https://pinstripesnation.com/yankees-michael-kay-shuts-the-door-on-espn-co-host-2026-01-17/
I especially like the line, "Michael has to be the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral." Priceless.
Part of what his daughter, Alice, said about Teddy Roosevelt. Right in both cases.
And as for Cody...
Well, first of all, he and his agent (I wish he were my agent!) are not in a market with the greatest and/or best paid of all time. Cody is now the single, remaining, premium free agent on the market.
Are the Yankees bidding against themselves? Then it's time for them to tell Boras and Cody, cards on the table. You have a real offer from someone else? Let's see it.
If there IS a real offer out there, then the Yankees must decide: is some relatively minor upgrade—one more year, $10 million, etc.—enough to get this done? If so, then they should do it, to make sure 2026 is not an even bigger shitshow than it is already going to be.
And "relatively" works both ways. Cody has got to think seriously about what he's doing. Even with the current Yankees, playing the big ballpark in the Bronx (not the O.G. BBPB, but still), for a storied team, taking aim at that LF porch, and hitting behind Aaron Judge is pretty sweet.
Maybe even, "shot at Hall-of-Fame" sweet, if all goes great. Is all that worth sacrificing for that extra $10 mill/wretched 7th year in Toronto? When he is ALREADY going to be amongst the richest individuals who ever strode the planet.
I dunno. But enough already. It was one thing to go through this with Soto, a generational player.
Cody, Yanks? Time to settle this already and start talking about where we can get some damned pitching.
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