It was less than 3 weeks ago when Alex Rodriguez decided that the middle of World Series Game 4 was the opportune time to announce he was ditching the Yankees through a clause in his contract. At the time, Howard Stern sidekick (and lifelong Yankees fanatic) Artie Lange quipped: "Don't let the free-agency door hit you on the way out" (I'm paraphrasing to keep it clean, folks).In the wake of this stunt, our own Georges Yared referred to A-Rod as a "crybaby extraordinaire" and a "selfish, self-centered you-know-what." Georges also noted that, "The attempt to upstage the Red Sox and Rockies should not be forgiven nor forgotten by the baseball brethren." Indeed, it was a classless move, one likely perpetrated by A-Rod's agent, but certainly given the green light by the third baseman himself.
And yet, here it is mid-November, and hijo pródigo A-Rod and the Yanks are back at the table. It's all sorts of amusing, really. This morning, it hit newswires that negotiations mediated by Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) officials have resulted in a new contract for the clutch player who isn't. Reportedly, A-Rod wanted to restart negotiations with the team, but chose to use a third party (Goldman representatives) instead of his agent, Scott Boras.
The new deal reportedly runs 10 years and carries a total compensation tag of ... sorry if you're eating as you read this ... $275 million. This would be the most lucrative contract ever signed by a U.S. athlete, breaking the previous record held by ... A-Rod. Before the 2001 season, he signed a 10-year, $252 million contract.
After the free-agent-announcement stunt on October 28, Yankees management vowed to refrain from entering negotiations with Rodriguez. It only took them 18 days to change their tune.
When Rodriguez abandoned his contract to field (no pun intended) better offers, his agent argued that plenty of teams would be lucky to sign his client for $30 million a year. But it seems as though this level of offers didn't exactly roll in. Besides, how many teams can actually afford such a salary? Four? Five? So the greedy A-Rod and the deep-pocketed Yankees deserve each other. Now can they work together for a world championship?
Beth Gaston Moon is an analyst at Schaeffer's Investment Research.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
11-16-2007 @ 4:03PM
Gil said...
Hip Hip WHO CARES? It will be even more fun to watch the Yanks lose to teams whose entire payroll is less then $$-Rod's salary.
11-16-2007 @ 4:03PM
Gil said...
Hip Hip WHO CARES? It will be even more fun to watch the Yanks lose to teams whose entire payroll is less then $$-Rod's salary.
11-16-2007 @ 11:46PM
Stevie said...
Not only is A-Rod pure greed,but the Yankees brass have shown pure disrespect,by signing him this way,to their players who have shown them nothing but loyalty,class and respect..I'm talking Jeter,Rivera and Posada..the Yankees brass have in effect taken the team away from those 3 players,the 3 players who are ultimate Yankees,and have more or less shown them that this team now belongs to Greed-Rod.
Its an absolute disgrace,and as a Yankee fan i'm ashamed at the way the 3 great Yankees have been treated in all this