An open letter to Alex Rodriguez, the $252-million-dollar man . . .
Dear Alex,
You probably don’t remember me, A-Rod, but we were formally introduced at Burns Stadium in 1994.
You were the one kissing the minor-league grass, a wide-eyed teenager from Miami scraping by on your $25,000-a-year Calgary Cannons salary, one step away from the big leagues and Armani suits.
Remember? You were so excited before your first game as a Cannon you punched a hole clean through your mitt during an interview.
Remember? You were regaling us sports writers with boyhood yarns about your mom, a single parent, dragging herself home from her three waitress jobs and letting you pretend how rich you were by rolling around in $40 worth of tip money.
Remember? I was the one who lent you a quarter so you could call your mom because you were short for the tip for the clubhouse attendant.
Never mind the quarter. You probably don’t have change from that $252 million US you just scooped as a free agent from Texas Rangers’ owner Tom Hicks.
Since you signed that 10-year contract worth $25.2 million US per year last week, the sports writers have been tripping over each other to think up new ways of saying that you are stinking rich.
Indeed, you do have enough dough to buy Saskatchewan, the Florida Marlins (for your mom), Fiji and an agent, Scott Boras, who could get Bill Gates a contract with the Yankees.
Unfortunately, A-Rod, you don’t have everything. You don’t have an investment adviser.
Investment advice, of course, is one of the key fundamentals of the modern game of baseball, even more important than hitting, running, catching, shopping and letting your agent think for you.
Even though we’re kind of busy these days, what with waiting for Cell-Loc to return our calls, we will act on your behalf because it is in the best interests of the game.
In other words, ever since we read in People Magazine that you owned about 897 pairs of shoes while you were living paycheque-to-paycheque (a piddly $4.5 million salary) as a Seattle Mariner, we wondered what might become of you if some dumb owner paid you $252 million US.
We don’t want you to rush out and blow the loot on 2,000 Ferraris for you and your pals.
You may already have been contacted by the investment firm of Hicks, Muse, Tate & Faust (and a zillion stockbrokers) but please disregard them.
What does Tom Hicks (of Hicks, Muse, Tate & Faust) know about investing anyway? Isn’t he the guy who just paid a baseball player $129,629 US per game? Or $69,274 per day (hourly wage, $2,886)? Whether there was a game or not? So what does this all mean?
It means that you may never look at the game as you once did. Say good-bye to the playground. Say hello to the minefield.
That boyish exuberance you were famous for as a Mariner and Cannon won’t wash for a quarter-billion-dollar man. So stop smiling. Even if it’s genuine, your fans won’t buy it anymore. Stand in front of the mirror and practice grimacing.
Unfairly or not, you’ll be under constant scrutiny on and off the field. You’re not the happy-go-lucky shortstop anymore, just the most obscene contract in sports history.
On days that you play like a mere mortal, the customers who pay your salary will ride you like a rented mule. Because you said your priority was to sign with a winner and then signed with an organization that hasn’t won anything and has pitchers who are older than your mom, Mariner fans will welcome you home by booing you mercilessly. You’re going to feel like Cell-Loc CEO Michel Fattouche at a meeting with irate shareholders.
When Calgary product Jeff Zimmerman and the Ranger pitchers get hammered, it will be your fault because your contract sapped the team budget.
If major-league baseball grinds to a halt with a labour crisis, the spotlight will be on how your contract fuelled the wage insanity.
You can’t just be the best all-round player in the game anymore. You have to be Superman with a bat.
Trying to spend all that money could be a terrible burden with catastrophic consequences. So, as your investment adviser, we’ll put you on a tight $1,000-a-day budget, a disciplined lifestyle — no more hanging out with Madonna — and a mushy green diet. Forget about the Lobster Bisque and the Cognac and the Cuban cigars. You’ll have to live like a saint now if you’re going to be MVP. Forget charisma.
We’ll invest your salary in blue-chip stocks (no sexy dot-coms), personal fitness centres in every major-league city, personal trainers (no, not Jennifer Lopez!) and delicious broccoli milkshakes.
Even if you hit .400, you won’t be able to look like a player when you’re 30 (ie. Tony Gwynn, Babe Ruth, etc.), not when you’re making $14,403 per inning whether you get an at-bat or touch the baseball.
And like John Roth at Nortel, A-Rod, you must single-mindedly focus on staying ahead of the game and the competition.
Because, the new reality for that teenager boyishly skipping on the turf at Burns Stadium six years ago is that it’s not a game anymore.
It’s big business.
So wipe that silly grin off your face. And stop punching that mitt!
