Slush Funds

For the second time in a week, the weather forecasters got their predictions wrong. No accumulation of snow last night into today. Just wet slush, kind of like a little kid finger painting and leaving big blobs of white and brown on the paper in random spots.

This weather reminds me of when we played a "spring training" game in Cleveland about 5 years ago to help open up their new stadium. Late-March in Ohio can still be cold. This day, it was about 35 degrees. Not cold enough for snow. Certainly cold enough for slush. Of course, a rainout can be commonplace in the spring, but slushouts are very rare. The team and league would do almost anything to avoid both.

The grounds crew did their best to keep the field clean, but what they should have done was take a massive hair dryer and aim at toward the outfield. That's the game where Omar Viscaye snapped his fibula sliding from center into left field against his will (both the sliding and the snapping). When you miss a whole season because of a spring training injury, it kind of puts a bad taste in your mouth for the great slushy white north. (Strange how Omar just signed a minor league deal with Minnesota last week. It's even colder up there. Maybe he prefers ice to slush.)

The whole reason for our playing in Cleveland - 2 games, not just 1 - at the end of spring training was because their ownership had cut a deal with the league. Two additional sell outs were good for everyone's pockets but ours. We have fixed, basically, contracts (incentives, weight clauses aside). But ownership goes into a season with projected revenue streams. They know what their costs are going to be. They know the revenues they'd like to earn. If they can garner a little cushion before the season even begins, even better for them.

It's like how this year, the season starts - actual games that count - on March 23rd. Cincinnati plays St. Louis in neither Cincinnati or St. Louis, but in Tokyo. Two games on the 23rd and 24th, then a week off before playing two more games against each other in Cincinnati April 3rd & 4th (by the way, Cincinnati's in Ohio too, where it's still cold on April 3rd & 4th). At least in Tokyo, they're playing in a dome.

The fact is, these two teams are playing in Tokyo not for the sake of the players and their incomes, but for the league and its foreign investment. Meaning, the league will benefit financially from this almost immediately. The players benefit to a degree, but not as much in the short term. If we eventually include Japan into our divisional structure and have real games against Tokyo and Nagasaki and Hiroshima, then we'll get lots more revenues from ancillary streams, meaning merchandise and other things I don't know about.

So why the rant? Guess I'm just a little peeved at my local weather man for making me think I could miss a workout by being snowed in. Yes, I'm supposed to be hungry to compete and make myself better and be the best I can be blah, blah, blah. But I'm also a human who gets sleepy. On days when I can't, I'd like to sleep in. That means I'd really like to sleep in on days when it snows, and I supposedly can, only I can't because it doesn't snow which makes me more tired.

I could just go to bed earlier.

Nah. It's more fun to watch The Weather Channel and hope for slush in Cincinnati. Maybe my friends can get an extra day off when they return from Japan and spend some of that league money on boots and parkas and earmuffs. Then when we strike later in the year, we can blame it on the weather. Not on the money.

What's So Free About Being An Agent?

At midnight this morning, teams could begin the official buying of human beings to slave on professional baseball fields for them in front of millions of people across the country. I could have been one of these indentured-servants-to-be, but we all know by now I opted to do otherwise.

It's not just the players who are salivating at the mouth (as if there's someplace else to engage in the legal act of salivation), the agents are too. Because when you see Player A sign with Team B for X amount of dollars, Agent 007 gets a nice little portion of that check. Fans and team management likes to blame agents for the spiraling salaries we as players can receive, but agents do more than that. I've had three agents in my 21 years in professional baseball. Each successive agent has succeeded more in the pocketbook because of my abilities, the game's economics, and, oh hell, I'll admit it, their hard work.

Now is one of those times they work the hardest. It's not just guys like me who earn $10 million, $15 million, even $25 million per year they concentrate on. There are also the very important bench guys who'll get a one year $650K deal who they need to find jobs for. Also, there are the guys just looking for an invitation from a big league club to spring training, some former stars who can't let go of the game, who need one more summer in The Life, who drive their respective agents crazy pestering them for work. Finally, there are the players who believe they are better than everyone else, the ones who live through the Law of Excuses, of untapped excellence, who are misunderstood by other players, their managers and coaching staffs, their wives/girlfriends... These guys, in general, are also one step closer to legal insanity than any other players in the game. I've played with a number of this type of player. Examples:

A) Orville - Scared to death of flying, tough considering you can't get from an extra-inning midnight game in New York to the clubhouse in LA at 4PM by minivan. By the time I played with this guy, he was what we called a Roadtrip Alcoholic. The only way to get him on and off the plane was to liquor him up so bad, has hangover lasted until the flight home. Then we'd do it all over again. Never hit higher than .270 but swore in some alternate universe he was a .330 slugger.

B) Neville - Guys have different hobbies, like hunting, videogames big time over the past five or six years, collecting cars... But Neville's hobby was falling hardcore in love with any female in a skirt. As a result, he collected wives. A number of reasons this can't be good:

1. It's illegal to be married to more than one person at a time in America.
2. He'd break taboo and make moves on girlfriends and wives of teammates. Not a good way to make friends.
3. Everybody knew about it.

It's amazing to me the media never reported on this guy, because the man did these things in an internet, post-TMZ world. The guy's currently out of baseball, but I heard he called his agent just last week looking to make a comeback. I guess if you're married to more than one woman at a time, you can be divorced to them at the same time too. Sounds like the guy needs a spreadsheet to keep track of who's getting alimony.

C) Devil - Growing up, every class in school had its troublemaker. That doesn't change when we get older. Never. Every single team I've played for has had the one - sometimes two or three (bad job by upper mgt. there) - of these guys who break rules, break laws, and, through osmosis, help break up a team. They make a lot of money because they're genuinely talented, and even the biggest jerk will get a $9 million contract if he can hit a ball over a wall or throw a ball through it. Agents have love/hate relationships with these players. Marquee names, marquee salaries, but high maintenance individuals. Many won't return calls or give feedback other than, "$10 million. That's all I want. Tell me when you get it." These guys follow the money, and sometimes they get lucky and it's a winning team that wants them. Contracts longer than 2 years are not for the GM (or agent) with a faint of heart. I hate these guys, who say stupid things like the holocaust, dinosaurs and gays never existed. 9/11 was a conspiracy, and we're all out to get them. We are, but they perform on the field, so we pretend we're not if they ask.

So when you start seeing the money get thrown around starting today, think about all of the parties involved. We don't play in a vacuum, nor do we get paid in one. Blame the agents all you want, but it ain't a party without them.