Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Traitor Joe's

Little announced on Tuesday night that he was resigning as manager as reports surfaced that the Dodgers and Torre are on the verge of consummating a deal.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3087421

“I just felt the contract offer, the terms of the contract, were probably the thing I had the toughest time with,” Torre said in response to a question last Friday. “The one year for one thing, the incentives for another thing. The fact that I’ve been there 12 years, I didn’t think motivation was needed.”

In his interview with Costas, Torre expanded his views of the incentives.

“I don’t think incentives are necessary,” he said. “I’ve never needed to be motivated. Plus, in my contract, I get a million-dollar bonus if we do win the World Series. So that’s always been there. And, you know, as far as needing incentive to go ahead and win a ballgame, that I thought, I used the term insulting.”

Torre referred to a $1 million bonus for winning the World Series. He indeed had that in his last two contracts, which covered the last six years of his employment. In the 2002-4 contract, he was able to earn $200,000 for winning the division series, $300,000 for winning the league championship series and $500,000 for winning the World Series.

The 2005-7 contract eliminated the division series bonus but provided $400,000 for winning the league championship series and $600,000 for winning the World Series, the bonuses still adding to a maximum $1 million.

Obviously Torre did not object to those bonuses, did not reject them as insulting. He signed those contracts and readily accepted the incentives they offered. Even though the Yankees didn’t win the World Series in those six years, Torre earned $700,000 of a possible $3 million in the first contract but nothing in the second because the Yankees lost the division series each year.

But those were not the only incentives in a Torre contract. In the 2002-4 deal, he had bonuses based on the number of games the Yankees won — $100,000 each for 90, 94, 98, 102. He earned an additional $1 million of a possible $1.2 million.
What was that about not needing incentive “to go ahead and win a ballgame”? That thought insulted Torre? Why, then, did he accept $1 million worth of insults in those years? And why wasn’t he willing to accept a potential $3 million in insults for next season?

We also don’t know why he was willing to discuss a one-year contract last spring but not accept one year now.
Yes, Torre was prepared to sign a one-year extension.
Torre went to Steve Swindal, who was then a general partner and a George Steinbrenner son-in-law in good standing, and General Manager Brian Cashman and told them he would like to manage the Yankees in the last year at Yankee Stadium.
Swindal, who had negotiated Torre’s existing $20.9 million contract ($6.7 million, $6.7 million, $7.5 million), said that idea was fine with him but would require Torre to take a pay cut. They were talking about a $4.5 million salary, apparently with no insulting incentives.
Their talks, however, died with Swindal’s decline after his D.U.I. arrest and subsequent divorce from Jennifer Steinbrenner. Cashman discussed the contract with Steinbrenner, who told him to wait until after the season.
Torre never mentioned those negotiations, nor did he disclose his profitable contract incentives. Should he have talked about either? Maybe he had no obligation to unless he was asked about them, but he did have a responsibility not to make misleading claims about motivation and insult.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/25/sports/baseball/25chass.html?ref=todayspaper

The cat's out of the bag Joe, again greed has prevailed. You turned down a guaranteed $5M (with a chance to earn $18M) for what's reported to be a $14-15M deal with the Dodgers. If you want to take another job, that's fine, if you wanted more money from the Yankees, fine, if you never want to see a Yankee ever again, fine, but no reason to have a press conference and act like you were insulted by $5M and incentives that existed previously. You're a fraud and phony that wants the spotlight on himself, I guess that's par for the course when it comes to pro sports. Me, Me, Me.

A-Hole Opts Out

Boras announced during Game 4 of the World Series on Sunday night that A-Rod was opting out of the final three seasons of his contract with the New York Yankees. The timing left baseball officials livid, and Boras apologized Monday evening, just after Rodriguez filed with the players' association and became a free agent for the first time since 2000.



http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/wire?section=mlb&id=3084690



Rodriguez's contract called for him to receive $24 million from the Yankees in each of the next three seasons, money offset by $21.3 million the Rangers agreed to pay as part of the trade. In addition, Rodriguez's contract called for $3 million from the Rangers in deferred money in each of the next three years.



http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/baseball/mlb/10/30/bc.bba.yankees.rodriguez.ap/



It's official A-Hole has opted out of his contract. In the past 7 years he has earned $180M (includes bonuses) of the 10 year $252M contract he signed with the Rangers in 2001. He has decided to leave $81M over the next 3 years in reported hopes of getting $300M over 10 years. There's greed and then there's insatiable gluttonous greed.



Where's Jeff Gillooly when you need him. Nothing would make me happier than someone taking a crowbar to A-Hole's knees. Oh, I'm sorry, are you not under contract, did you just see a guaranteed $100M fly out the door never to be seen again. Suck it A-Hole!!!



In case anyone wants to hire him, Gillooly changed his name to Jeff Stone, at least that's what Wikipedia says, so it's gotta be true.

Opening Comments

Sound the alarm, stop the presses! The Boycott Pro Sports blog is up and running. A press conference will be held at The White House’s Rose Garden, or my basement, whichever is available. Fyi, Corporate naming rights to my basement are currently available to the highest bidder.

This blog has been set-up as a place for the “Average Joe” to complain and let your voices be heard about how disgusted you are with pro sports, the athletes that play them, the coaches and managers who prepare and instruct them and the owners that run the business. After all, Average Joe, you are the employer of all of them. Without your ticket and merchandise purchases, your TV viewership and every other way you contribute they would have no revenues to live their extravagant lifestyles.

Occasionally memebers of the pro sports community do things that are worthy of recognition and a pat on the back, when such a rarity occurs, we’ll let you know about it as well. But for the most part, we’ll highlight the greed and stupidity of pro sports.

As “the employer” it’s time to stand up and say you’re not going to take it anymore and this is the place to do it. I' look forward to hearing from my fellow Average Joe's (AJ's).