Tuesday, December 16, 2008

C.C. and A.J. - One Hell of a Payday

C.C. Sabathia doesn't take his glove off to eat. He uses it as a food shovel. I wouldn't give a shit about table manners either if I made $23 million a year.


So the New York Yankees recently went out and spent a quarter of a billion dollars on two pitchers.

C.C. Sabathia – 7 years, $161 million.
A.J. Burnett – 5 years, $82.5 million.

Think about that for a minute…….

You’re probably thinking that A.J. is pretty goddamn jealous of C.C. right about now. And you’d probably be right. “Is that guy really twice as valuable as I am? I mean, as a human being?”

Now think about the sheer magnitude of these Steinbrenner-esque salaries.

Why should C.C. and A.J. get all that dough? You want that kind of payday too – especially in this economy. With that kind of money, you could scoop up some seriously sweet real estate deals, and probably get some bankrupt small businesses on the cheap. But you also say that you’re too old, or fat, or uncoordinated to throw a baseball 95 mph.

This is all very true. Although I wouldn’t exactly call you fat. You’re more “pleasantly plump.” Don’t be so hard on yourself.

In any case, there is something you can do.

And I’ll tell you exactly what you’re gonna do. You’re gonna start teaching your kid how to throw a baseball. Or start having kids so that you can teach them how to throw a baseball. Or, if you’re one of my youngest readers, start bugging your parents to teach you how to throw a baseball.

The riches that these players reap nowadays compare favorably to winning Mega Millions or Powerball.

Fact: The odds of winning Mega Millions is approximately 1 in 175 million. The odds of making it to the Major Leagues, if you’re a healthy American male who doesn’t totally suck at all sports, is probably around 1 in a million at the worst – and likely quite a bit better than that. That’s at least 175 times better odds than the lottery – and for essentially the same return on your investment.

So don’t waste your energy with dreams of winning the lottery. Have a kid. And if it’s a girl, have another one until you have a boy. And if you already have a boy under the age of 10 or so, then teach him how to throw a baseball. Preferably teach him how to throw left-handed, even if it stunts the growth of his dominant right hand.

On second thought, maybe you should just keep having kids until you have a left-handed boy. All the hard work is likely to pay off, especially if you have a couple hundred thousand male children.


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3 comments:

carole said...

what are the odds of being the next sandy kaufax, or the next wang chao (had to google that one)? in other words, what should you and jaimi or josh and i do if we are playing the odds? teach our kids math or business or bank on producing a superior athlete?

JG said...

who ever said math and baseball were incompatible pursuits?

The Mill said...

JG is right. Why can't you teach your kid math and business in the morning, and practice sports in the afternoon? Thereby doubling your probability of success, and a comfortable retirement.

There are 24 hours in the day Carole!!