Derek Zumsteg has a lengthy and detailed post looking back at the departure of Alex Rodriguez from Seattle, and defending A-Rod against charges that he was a greedy, two-faced mercenary. (This is as opposed to his attempt to leave the Yankees, but then Yankee fans always thought A-Rod was a greedy, two-faced mercenary). Zumsteg makes a good case that A-Rod may well have been willing to stay in Seattle for less money than Texas, but (1) it wasn’t crazy to think that Texas was a more winning franchise at the time, and (2) Texas offered so much more money than Seattle. Zumsteg refers to this only generally, but you have to remember that at the time, A-Rod had watched the two cornerstones of the Mariner franchise (Griffey and Randy Johnson) leave over money; it was reasonable, when the Mariners then offered him far less money than he ended up getting from Texas, to conclude that Seattle just wasn’t going to put down the kind of dollars needed to field a competitive team over the course of the contract.
3 thoughts on “Away-Rod”
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One thing I’m totally sick of is the demonization of the modern player as “greedy and ungrateful” by ownership, the media, and ordinary fans. As if any of them would spit in the face of 250 million over 10 years to play a child’s game for a living. As if the owners got rich by being altruistic and humble and charitable. Like the sportswriters wouldnt abandon their posts in front of their typewriters in a split second in order to pick up a bat for millions if they had the talent. It’s America for Chrissakes, its capitalism at its best, and if you dont like it dont offer the money, dont pay the ticket, dont turn on the channel, and most importantly of all….DONT LOOK TO THE PLAYERS AS ROLE MODELS. The travesty is not them coming up short on your imposed standards of morality, the travesty is you looking to them for heroic inspiration in the first place, when instead you should be worshipping cancer researchers , schoolteachers and the like. The players are the game not the owners; we wouldnt pay 50 bucks to watch the owners play pitch and catch. He’s worth every dime the market bears, and not a cent of our condemnation for accepting it.
Hmm, who to worship the idiot ballplayer, the cancer researcher taking “honorariums” from big pharma, the male teacher having sex with the 15th year old, or maybe the female teacher having sex with the 13 year old? How about none of the above? If you look for heros outside the deli section you are bound to be disappointed.
One thing that I always thought was stupid. The idiots who said the players years ago would have played for nothing. Unless they mean the players of 1868, I don’t know what year they mean?
ARod took the money; same as we all would have. Same as Ruth did, Cobb, Lip Pike for that matter. That asinine title When It Was a Game? That ends in middle school.