The 30 Million dollar (a year) man

Every year we have a new group of athletes that need tons of money to play for a team that they say they love and want to play for their whole career.  To me if you love something you don’t need 30 million dollars a year to do it but if I could get 30 million a year you bet your ass I would be asking for it!  Lets look at this whole Albert Pujols situation.  People think that Big Al asking for 300 million over 10 years is freaking ridiculous which honestly to any of us who don’t make anywhere near 30 million a year you are right its crazy but in the world of professional sports it isn’t that crazy to expect to get 30 million a year.  Lets compare some other star athletes and their pay on a yearly basis and maybe this whole Pujols situation wont be so hard to comprehend.

Alex Rodriguez        

A-Rod made an amazing 250 million 10-year deal in 2000 that at the time was over 50 million more then the net closest player.  So Alex made 25 million a year and why did he get that contract?  Alex got this contract after being a 4x all-star no MVP’s, no golden gloves, and no world series wins. That being said in the years after his contract he has been a 9x all-star, 2x golden glove, won a ring and won the AL MVP 3xs.  Does that mean he was over paid? For a guy who plays day in and day out I don’t think that he got paid too much but who knows?

Carlos Zambrano

In 2010 Carlos made 19 million for what was probably his worst year ever.  This being said a pitcher only plays in about 1/5^th of the games in a season.  Zambrano finished the season with a whooping 9-7 record.  If you do the math that is over 2 million bucks per win for the cubs.  Now the cubs haven’t had the greatest luck over the past 100 years but if you told me you would pay 2 million for a win in baseball where you play over 150 games I would tell you that you should be in a different business cause that’s not going to make you any damn money.

Tracy McGrady

In 2010 he made almost 24 million dollars and only played in 35 games! Tracy was a huge talent that seems to have been wasted.  T-Mac has never lived up to his full potential but that doesn’t mean that he hasn’t gotten paid for it! T-Macs 24 million is more then Kobe Bryant’s salary.  If you were to ask anyone who should have been paid more last year between Kobe and T-Mac and you told me T-Mac then I would probably slap the shit out of you and tell you to stop pretending to watch sports.  Kobe didn’t make much less but he definitely did far more then Tracy did.

Now lets talk about the reason that Albert Pujols deserves management to at least consider paying him enough money that he could make castles out of silver dollars.  Since Pujols has been in the Majors he has won Rookie of the year, 9x all star, 3x NL MVP, 2xs golden glove, and his team has won a world series.  Do these numbers stack up to A-rods numbers? Well yes! Is Albert older then A-Rod when he got his ridiculous contract yes he is, but does that mean that he won’t have a better career? No, that doesn’t mean that at all.  Albert is one of the biggest faces in the MLB today.  He is one of the only power hitters of the last 10 years to not be accused of “juicing” and he has over 400 home runs in his career and he has a career .331 batting average which is .030 over A-Rods.  Based on inflation 250 million dollars in 2000 is the same as 320 million in 2011. So should Pujols at least make 300 million? I defiantly think he should be close to that.

  The cardinals opened a new ballpark in the 2006 season and went on to win a world series that same year.  If you want to build a half a billion-dollar ballpark you need to be able to fill that bad boy almost every game.  If you don’t have an Albert Pujols then who are you going to come watch? Anyone who isn’t a Cards fan please name me one more player on the roster? Anyone? You? No? Nothing? That’s what I thought.  People you fail to realize the difference in revenue that big Al brings to your franchise not only in ticket sales but also in merchandise sales.  What jersey do you sell besides the number 5 jersey (in case you didn’t know that is an Albert Pujols jersey)? If you don’t have butts in the stands then who buys the beers? Who eats the hotdogs? Who’s kid gets a huge giant foam finger? Yeah all of those things go into the decision-making processes for any businessman.  Which is exactly what the owners of any major sports team are.  They are businessmen and not just fans like you and me.  If they were fans like me and you they would have 4 new coaches a year, if you went into a slump your ass would be cut or traded, you would give out free beers, and probably run the franchise into the ground even worse then Matt Millen ran the lions into the ground.  Don’t get me wrong people I would love to have some form of influence into my teams “game plans” but then again I would only think with my heart and not my head or my checkbook! As much as we don’t want to admit it sports are a business and we are the consumers.  We pay for the tickets, buy the jerseys, drink the beers, watch the highlights and basically make sure that the players get paid.  So next time you hear about a player making more money in one year then most of us will make in our whole lives think of why that is.  You have to spend money to make money.




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