The World Series starts tonight, but without Barry Zito in the Giants lineup. He was kept off the roster for the National League championships which is surprising since he has a contract worth $126 million. Actually it’s not that surprising since the overpaid and underachieving athlete is the new face of sports.
It all started in hockey, of all places, when Derek Sanderson, a journeyman player with the Boston Bruins jumped to the new WHA for $2 million, the first million dollar contract in sports. The WHA folded, Sanderson blew his money and we moved on to baseball where the Angels signed Joe Rudi for $2 million. I asked an executive with the Angels what was so special about Rudi and he said “he’s just an ordinary ballplayer but the team wanted him”. And of course it grew from there until there were 1000 athletes with million dollar contracts. The Angels seem terminally suited to this when they signed Mark Langston in 1989 to a big contract. He went 8 and 13 and one of the sports writers quipped, “if they wanted 8 and 13 they should have kept Urbano Lugo (a lowly paid player). They signed Mo Vaughn to a $60 million contract. He did nothing and was gone in a few years. The Vancouver Canucks signed Mark Messier for big money. He didn’t break a sweat when playing. What does it mean? It means that the agents are smarter than the owners. After all, the billionaire owners aren’t at practice, or in the dugout or on the bench. They’re too busy acting out their ego trips in the luxury boxes. And to think that once upon a time Ted Williams asked for a smaller contract because he felt he’d had a bad year.
I admire the Giants for benching Zito. He had a lousy season and never seemed to get beyond the 4th inning after giving up his trademark home runs. The best statement I heard was Coach Bruce Bochy saying, after the Giants won the pennant, “Not bad for a bunch of castoffs and misfits”. More hungry misfits mean better baseball.
Note: My thanks to Roland Zapata of Portland Oregon who did the research for this blog.
No comments:
Post a Comment