A-Rod Deal Up To $314 Million

So now the deal for A-Rod is up to $314 million. And Bud Selig idiotically ends more than a century of tradition to allow teams to reward players for statistical achievements -- you just have to call them "historic milestones" instead od # of HRs. They will the day -- though actually they won't since they're too stupid to realize what a dangerous door they've opened. Meanwhile, other people continue to paint A-Rod and Boras as the big losers who blinked first. Why? Because Boras didn't get the $350 mil he reportedly claimed he wanted from the Yankees. Yes, Boras did huge damage to A-Rod's reputation with that World Series stunt. has Bud Selig penalized A-Rod and his agent yet for thrusting their own personal story into the clinching game of the World Series and distracting from baseball's biggest night? Nope. And what was A-Rod's image BEFORE this latest fracas? It was as a supremely talented but petty player who has always gone for the money, is disliked intensely by his former teammates, booed aggressively by HIS OWN TEAM'S FANS for an entire season. In other words, his image was pure crap. They don't care about image. They care about money. And who blinked? The Yankees insisted if he walked they would never negotiate. Then they negotiated. They outbid their OWN HIGHEST OFFER FROM BEFORE, AN OFFER THEY HADN'T EVEN MADE. At most, they reportedly outbid the only vageu tentative not-confirmed offer of $225 million BY A TOTAL OF $89 MILLION. They outbid the market by $90 MILLION, which is close to the $100 mil Texas outbid other teams for A-Rod's services in a deal widely mocked as one of the stupidest and most profligate in baseball history. Everything Boras promised A-Rod he delivered, including a front-loaded salary (which costs a team even more) in which A-Rod wil get $32 mil his first three years for bragging rights. I try to move beyond this deal and accept it but people continue to mischaracterize this massive, record-breakng contract as some sort of "discount" that handed A-Rod humble pie. I'll take a nice big fat heloing of that humble pie any day, thank you.