No Deal

While you were enjoying the day before the most awesome day of the week, likely American League MVP Alex Rodriguez, better known as A-Rod to baseball fans (not necessarily of his), opted out of his $252 MILLION for 10 YEARS contract with the New York Yankees to test the waters of free agency. In doing so, he gives up the remaining $70+ million in guaranteed money. He must really want out.

Actually, so says his agent, he had to give the Yankees a deadline to let the Yankees know if he was going to stay or go, and he hadn't heard definitive answers from some of the other key members of the team as to whether they were staying or going. So he's going.

The Yankees were reportedly ready to offer him between $25 and $30 million per year. He had already set records with his original contract, and this would have topped that. $25 million to play a sport for about 5 months (6 months if you're a typical Yankees squad). That's $5 million per month of work, and that's so many more times my salary that it's not even funny.

The happiest people in this story are probably the Texas Rangers, who had been paying the Yankees $3 million a year since they traded him to the Yankees in 2001. It doesn't look like another team will match what he was making with the Yankees (it is the Yankees, after all). You mean he's willing to chance taking a pay cut to win a World Series? What a guy. If he would swap my monthly pay for one week of his "job," I'd think he was even more highly of him.

So now the media will spend as long as it takes him to decide figuring out where A-Rod's going next. That's because the Yankees have said prior that if he opted out, they weren't going to try for him. They haven't commented on this situation just yet. At least we are reasonably certain that he's actually leaving, which beats Kobe-watch any day in my book.

In other news, the Boston Red Sox won the World Series. What, you didn't see it?