It's Not About the Money

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Et tu Albert?

He loves the fans in St. Louis. They are the smartest fans and he wants nothing more than to be the next Stan Musial in the world's greatest baseball town. His family is there. He loves it there. Nothing he'd rather do than finish his career with one team.

I guess there are truly only a few really dedicated guys like Jeter, Ripken, and Gwynn. I really thought that Albert fit the description.

What is really going to drive me up the wall is when King Albert starts his Angels press conference by telling us that it's not about the money.

For the record, the Angels are paying him about $26 mil a year and the Cards came in at about $22 mil a year.

If it's not about the money than what is it about?

Wanting to settle the wild west?

I'm sure that before the press conference is over Albert will make reference to the fact that he felt as if St. Louis management had disrespected him.

How dare they insult him by making him such a paltry offer?

The other thing about it, of course, is the going amount for a slugging 1st baseman. Imagine what Mantle and DiMaggio might have commanded.

Albert is one of the larger corporations doing business in California these days, isn't he?

I heard a sportscaster discussing it yesterday and he put it in simple terms for all of us peons. If you're making fifty grand and the company down the street offers you eighty don't you just go?

Probably.

But when you are talking about more money than you can possibly spend in your lifetime, or your grand-childrens lifetimes doesn't that put a different spin on things?

"We make a lot of money, but we spend a lot of money," Patrick Ewing once famously said.

"I gots to feed my kids," Latrell Sprewell once said when he was arguing about the difference between a 50 and a 60 million dollar deal.

As a baseball fan, I wish the off-season movement wasn't about dollars and cents. I am not a hypocrite enough to say that I don't enjoy the trades and the free agent signings.

(The 27-time World Champion Yankees have dabbled in the market).

I just wish I didn't know anything about the dollars.

"It's not about the money," Albert will say. "I just always wanted to bring a championship to Southern California."

Spare me.

I ain't that dumb.

Break a leg, Albert.

Comments

Gag said…
You forgot Mike Schmidt.
09 December, 2011
Cliff Fazzolari said…
Good point...and the Philly fans made his life a living hell for a while there.
09 December, 2011
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