Living Vicariously Through Free Agency

Baseball fans were told Sunday by AP writer Tim Dahlberg that we should be outraged by the exorbitant salaries being handed to free agents this “winter.”  I’m feeling a lot of things right now, but outrage isn’t one of them.

When the Yankees signed lefty CC Sabathia to a seven-year, $161 million deal last week, then followed that up by signing A.J. Burnett to a five-year, $82.5 million deal two days later, I shuddered, not because of the nearly quarter-billion dollar outlay, but because the team I love to hate did what they always do—they eschewed the rebuilding process and simply reloaded.  Instead of being disgusted, slamming my fist into the table, and lamenting the Yankees’ fiscal irresponsibility in the face of a brutal economy that’s scaring the daylights out of most of the populace, I reacted with my typical red-blooded-card-carrying-member-of-Red Sox-Nation-knee-jerk response and I’m hoping like hell the Sox will be equally irresponsible in offering Mark Teixeira whatever it takes to get him in carmine hose in 2009 and beyond.

According to Dahlberg, the dollars being thrown around by the Yankees are “troubling when things are good, obscene when they’re bad.”  He’s right.  It’s ludicrous that a baseball player can make almost three-quarters of a million dollars every time he pitches (Sabathia) or $120,000 per inning (Burnett, based on his career average), and, to be fair to the Yankees, it’s equally ridiculous for the Red Sox, Angels, Nationals, or Orioles to pay Teixeira more than $30,000 each time he steps to the plate.  In a perfect world our paramedics would get three-quarters of a million dollars each time they saved a life, our firefighters would get $120,000 each time they extinguished a conflagration, and our teachers would get $30,000 each time they banged the chalk out of their erasers, but this world is far from perfect and it sure as hell isn’t fair.

None of us are immune to the daily kick in the groin the economy delivers to us—my sister and all her friends lost their jobs a few months ago when the mortgage company they worked for went under and was bought out by a larger company, which affected my business because 75% of my clients worked for, you guessed it, said mortgage company.  A year ago, I was wondering how I was going to reduce my clientele so I could concentrate on my writing career.  Now I’d give almost anything to have them back.  Yet I’m not ashamed or embarrassed to admit that the second thing I do after checking my e-mail or referral service for potential new clients is check the Hot Stove reports to see if my Red Sox are any closer to throwing an insane amount of money at a big-name free agent who might help them win another World Series.

And why not?  Whether or not Teixeira signs with the Sox, the Nats or the O’s, or re-ups with the Angels has no bearing on the health of my business, the well-being of my current clients or the affordability of my service.  It doesn’t impact the price of gas or milk or heating oil.  What it does, though, is give me something to look forward to, to hope for.  I have no idea what the future holds for me or my business; I may end up going back to a 9-to-5, Monday through Friday, 40-hour work week, or I may end up getting out of the rat race altogether and becoming a full-time starving writer.  If the status quo holds, though, I’ll probably be exactly where I am now.  But if things get worse before they get better, the thought of living in a cardboard box would almost be palatable if I knew Teixeira was manning the first base bag for Boston come February.

Dahlberg insists “we should be outraged, but somehow most baseball fans don’t seem to be.  They’re too busy counting the number of days until spring training begins.”

Damn straight.  In 60 days, 15 hours, 54 minutes, and 10 seconds all will be right with the world again (unless Teixeira signs with someone other than Boston).