The Yankees beat the Red Sox today 4-2, and through 24 games, this season has been a breath of fresh air. Suck it in, savor it, because here comes the stench.
Word-murderer Brian Cashman announced after the game that the Yankees have chosen not to pay Alex the six million dollar bonus he earned last night. He says they are honoring the contract by opting out. As dumb as that sounds, it sounds even dumber when I don’t paraphrase. This from the Wallace Matthews ESPNNewYork.com article :
“We’re going to honor our responsibilities of the contract,” Cashman said. “(But) how it’s been reported . . . and what the contract actually says are two different things. It’s not ‘you do this, you get that.’ It’s completely different. It’s not all of a sudden, we’re choosing not to do something. If we choose to pursue something we’ll choose to pursue it. If we choose not to, it’s our right not to. In both cases, we’re honoring the contract.”
There are a few people who are privy to the exact wording of the contract, but it’s very hard to believe it’s written in such a way that the Yankees can honor a contract built to pay a player for hitting home runs by not paying him for hitting those home runs. For this to be the case, these well-reported milestone bonuses would rather be Yankee-held options on marketing contracts that they get to consider when the homers are hit. If that sounds absurd just on the face of it, consider this contract was written in 2007!
It makes no sense for Alex to give the Yankees right of first refusal on a marketing partnership so many years in advance without getting something for it. What he got, or obviously what everybody thought he got, was a guaranteed $6 million pay out when he hit the dingers. And the Yankees were going to Steinerize and memorabiliorate until the cows came home with profits. The cows appear unladen and the Yankees are backtracking, feebly.
Putting the organization’s shamelessness aside (After all, that’s the primary reason Cashman is still around right? He’s SO willing to be publicly humiliated on a semi-regular basis) the focus for all of us fans and all other players ever contemplating signing another free agent contract with the Yankees should be on the willingness for the Yankees to have this debate in the public forum. Just as last year, when they relied on our distaste for Alex to join with Bud Selig to railroad him out of baseball for an entire season (112 games more than the CBA dictated) again they are cocksure that we’ll take their side when they deny him his bonus.
This organization became caretakers of the longest running success story in American sports history, experiencing victory in every conceivable way from 1994-2012 (forgiving 2008) and took a pillow to it. They’ve been so ruthlessly effective that just two-plus years removed from the last division title, Yankee fans are gobsmacked by a hot streak in April. The team was so dead on arrival this year that I got an email asking if I’d like to come to Opening Day. On Opening Day. And the fact that they have a pulse on May 2nd is thanks to the surprisingly strong heartbeat of the very man they plan to screw six ways to Sunday.
The Yankees are the devil masquerading as a bank but appearing as a joke. It’s time for the inverse of Seinfeld’s laundry theory. Root for the flesh and blood. Fuck the pinstripes.
Whoa.
I really don't care about any of that stuff, honestly. I mean, I guess I'll read about it with a kind of prurient curiosity, but it makes no difference to me whatsoever which way it turns out.
A-Rod has been worth .7 wins more than a replacement-level DH so far, according to Fangraphs, so I guess there are maybe one or two other players contributing to the pulse.
Anyway, I liked April, and I plan to enjoy May. When A-Rod hits a home run I'm going to be psyched. Screw the rest of it.
Absurd PR move to officially announce that they aren't paying now. What purpose could that possibly achieve?
They could have buried the issue until after the post season, just as they always do with free agent contract negotiations.
[1] not sure which i love more - your sentiments or using the word "prurient."
either way, the last sentence of [0] was definitely a "whoa!" moment.
i wasn't sure how i was gonna react to this season. it was definitely gonna be weird without Captain Jetes. i have sooo many other things going on, it would be wonderful to spend less time on baseball. alex and the front office drama certainly weren't drawing me in.
but something funny happened as opening day approached and the season began... i'm still completely enamored with the sport. i love the game sooo much and thoroughly enjoy studying it. i find myself reading all kinds of articles, watching highlight news shows, and games just as much as ever. and i'm completely tuned in to my pinstriped heroes.
i've been thoroughly disappointed in a-rod's shenanigans and figured i'd feel no love toward him. but he's not a bad guy. he's not like manny who beat his wife and threw down an old man. and he's certainly not like fat liar who whines his way through half the game (no glove). i'm impressed with his perseverance and happy for his accomplishments. he has his boli, biogenesis, and jose reyes' canadian doctor (beltran's too), but his #s are eye-popping.
his swing looks beautiful and it's not like his hat size has increased to cartoon character levels. i was genuinely super psyched when he hit that laser beam over the monstah. i called it too! so glad he swung at 3-0. hitters should do that.
as far as this bonus crap? ah, who gives a shit. this is monopoly money. divvy it up to charities and call it a day. but, as far as i'm concerned, i ADORE the pinstripes.
GO YANKS!!!
I loved baseball long before I knew who Alex was and I'll love it as long as I will live It's an ugly, greedy business. Fuck all the bullshit.
Great piece, well done Jon. I long ago compartmentalized my pure love of the game away from my pure disgust with ownership and the Commish's office.
There are so many fine writers who touch this board (Thelarmis...you really stepped it up a notch!) that to respond properly to this would take me an hour to outline and rewrite.
Yes, the Yankees are smug, old fashioned almost in a silk stocking NYC kind of way in the way they look down their nose at us fans...look at the moat that surrounds the "legends seats", the lack of marketing to the ethnic minorities that surround their physical plant and who man their roster, the idol love to a convicted felon patriarch, and more.
Arod is a liar, and a little shall we say untrustworthy and thin of character. His contract was given when everyone believed, and I'll give Yankee management the benefit here, that he was a natural phenom that was among the all time greats of the game. Did we ever think Jeter used enhancers?
There's 10,000 more words to elaborate on this. I love this game, the Yankee greats over the years, and my hometown. That's enough to keep interest. I don't care if Arod gets paid and if pressed to give an opinion, I hope he doesn't.
[3,6] Great stuff too, Guys.
[6] thanks, kb! when i actually have the time, i can express myself better : ) i do quite a bit of 'real' writing in regards to my music projects. there's a goodly amount at my website...
I'm with Jon D on this one.
This is a pretty shitty way of approaching the situation, and the only good possible outcome is if it pisses Alex off enough to pass Ruth, Aaron, and Bonds, he carries the Yanks to consecutive WS titles, and the fans ask for (nay, demand) he be paid his future bonuses.
I can't say I absolutely care about how much Alex gets paid; he's not going to be hungry if he waits a year or two in the courts for his $6 million. But I am very angry that the team I root for is going to take it in very private places over contract language they themselves negotiated and agreed to and try to loop us and everyone in eye or earshot into their phony moral outrage. In a way it makes us look bad for being fans of this team.
So I wonder if the arbitrator does rule against them, will they continue with standing on their moral freaking high horse and sell the team? That would also be the right thing to do, following their logic; divorce yourselves of any involvement with something you truly believe is wrong. Of course, that's when they'll begin the discussion on gray areas and turning the other cheek. We can start calling the front office and ownership Fifty Shades of Gray; having more in common with that garbage than actual pinstripes.