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Posted 11/16/2007 at 04:21 PM
It seems all but official, Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez will remain a Yankee for the next 10 years at a whopping $27.5 million per year. Would you believe that the contract is going to be so complex that it actually involves both the Yankees and Major League Baseball's Players Association teaming up together against the league?
Major League Rule 3 (b) (5), states that no contract shall be approved "if it contains a bonus for playing, pitching or batting skill or if it provides for the payment of a bonus contingent on the standing of the signing club at the end of the championship season."
In other words, it's going to take some clever contractual language to get around this. Because both Rodriguez and the Yankees agree that he should share in revenue that will be obtained because of his performance as a Yankee, they're about to lobby the league to change the rule.
One thing has come to light during the past few weeks. First, it wasn't Scott Boras, A-Rod's agent, who actually got this deal in place, it was A-Rod himself. This alone proves a point I've been stating for the past few years; Agent's can not be trusted to always act in the best interest of their clients. Boras wanted to ditch the Yankees and take the cash while it's apparent that Rodriguez disagreed and wanted to remain a Yankee. It's already been made public around the league that he could have received more money from another team so it seems the only logical explanation.
Making players revenue partners has both its positives and negatives but in this case, the already rich Yankees made a decision to rest the fate of their next 10 years on the shoulders of Alex Rodriguez. That decision is something you can't put a price on.
Other notes:
When the Packers and Panthers square off this weekend you'll have the opportunity to see both Brett Farve and Vinny Testeverde on the same field again. Who would have thought?
As QB Dennis Dixon went on Thursday night, so did the Oregon Ducks chance at a national championship. Unfortunately, it also put a damper on the argument of another one loss team that might have been left out of a title game. I was hoping that argument might have led us to finally see a college football playoff system.
And we'll finish todays blog with unfortunate news; Barry Bonds is in trouble, big trouble. It's not that I really care at this point, I'm just very upset that the next few months at ESPN are going to revolve around the Bonds case. We already have Michael Vick to deal with. This is too much time taken away from important things, like actual sports. It's bad enough that MTV became Reality TV. Please don't let ESPN turn into Court TV.
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