Friday, January 16, 2009

A-Rod Does Europe or Somesuch

There's a big deal going down in European soccer. A young stud player from AC Milan named Kaka (you should probably put the accent on the second "ka") has received a mind-numbing offer to switch teams.

Manchester City is offering up $145 million over 4 years in order to have Kaka's services. For those of you counting at home, that averages out to $37 million a season, which
easily doubles what Kaka makes right now.

This is an unprecedented deal. According to Sports Illustrated, the
next closest deal to compare it to is the $65 million deal Real Madrid gave to the butting head of Zinedine Zidane more than 7 years ago.

So why in name of Copa Mundials would Manchester City drop such a bucket load of cash for this guy? Apparently George Steinbrenner has gone Midd
le Eastern on us. Manchester City is owned by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan. Excuse me, I need to rest my fingers after typing that name....

Sheikh is one of the wealthiest men in the world and money is no object for him to make his team successful. NOW. The teams hasn't won any sort of title since the 1970's so it's safe to say they don't have a winning atmosphere in the clubhouse. Manchester City officials also say that since Kaka is only 26 years old, he fits in to the long term plans with the team.

But mostly it's about winning. NOW.

This episode reminds me of a different time. It was a more innocent America. Most people thought Osama bin Laden was a drink size at Starbucks and Brittany Spears was the hot pop star with big boobs as opposed to the crazy chick with a shaved head and two kids.

New baseball owner Tom Hicks was going to take his Texas Rangers team to the World Series just like he had taken the Dallas Stars to the Stanley Cup. He had the money and he was going to show every other owner what he had in had pants.

But Hicks was not a patient man. There was to be no growing a solid farm system of young baseball players. Hicks did not have time for this crap! It was time to win! NOW!

General Manager Doug Melvin didn't agree with this and had the audacity to tell Hicks that the Rangers needed to stockpile young talent before they could make a run at any sort of championship. Damn it! Hicks didn't need to wait! He had money!

Out went Melvin and his vast baseball knowledge. In came John Hart and his lackluster commitment to the team. He told Hicks exactly what the owner wanted to hear. "Build a team? Hell, we can make a few big signings, trade away our farm system for names and we'll be in the World Series! Now excuse me, I'm going to go play some golf."

The Rangers needed some talent, so Hicks did the only thing a crazy and impatient owner could do: He went and signed the best young player in baseball to the single most retarded contract ever seen in the sport.

Alex Rodriguez got a 10 year $225 million contract. Jaws dropped. Pants were soiled. It got Hicks the media attention for his team and put a big target on his head for super agent and proclaimed baseball anti-Christ, Scott Boras.

Hicks explained that the contract given to A-Rod was an investment. Yes, the contract was by far bigger than anything else baseball had even sniffed, but A-Rod was young and would be good for a long time. He would bring media attention to the attention-starved Rangers and team would get that money back with championships and advertising.

Then Hicks discovered several things:

1.) A-Rod is an arrogant jackass who has every baseball measurable imaginable but very few intagibles such as leadership skills or honesty.

2.) John Hart had more interest in his bank account than studying up on players.

3.) Pitcher Chan Ho Park was a really, really, REALLY bad free agent signing. So was crack-head Ken Caminetti, so was 193 year old Andres Galarraga.

4.) The Rangers were not the up and coming winners Hicks and envisioned. In fact, they were becoming the laughingstock of the league thanks in most part to the gigantor contract handed to one Alex Rodriguez that netted the team several last place finishes.

So what does Hicks do? He trades away everyone at an extreme discount, refuses to ever deal with Scott Boras again and turns into a hermit tightwad who distrusts and lies to the media. The Rangers are still a laughingstock and are currently rebuilding plan number 9 and still have no pitching.

Meanwhile A-Rod has moved on to have statistic success with the New York Yankees but in the process has become the most despised player in the league. And you can trace it all back to the contract.

I'm not saying the Kaka signing will fail so spectacularly or that he will end up dating a crazy-ass aging pop-star who is twice his age while denying they are together the entire time.

I'm also not saying that if the signing doesn't work out, that the Sheikh...person will become an Obi Wan Kanobi like hermit who wanders the baseball desert like Tom Hicks does.

But it's always dangerous to pin the hopes of a franchise on one player. If it doesn't work out, we might end up removing that accent from the end of Kaka's name after all.

4 comments:

  1. That number of $145M goes to his team Milan and not to Kaka personally (in football, teams own their players and salary deals are negotiated separately). Kaka's salary would be a separate offer, rumored to be an un-heard-of $50M per year. To put that in comparison, that's almost DOUBLE what the top five or six of the best players on this PLANET earn.

    Also, keep in mind that these numbers are NET prices and earning, not gross.

    As for future sex scandals, don't hold your breath. Kaka's known to be a "super-christian", a self-proclaimed virgin until he married his wife two years ago. He also wears an "i belong to jesus" tee-shirt under his jersey, which he shows to his fans after he scores.

    And please don't ask where my knowledge of player sex lives comes from... that would just make us both uncomfortable.

    -MDG

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  2. I felt it best not to get too specific with the soccer part as I might scare readers away. But thank you for the specifics. It's always good to be accurate even though I'm a blogger which apparently gives me free reign to make statements without the albatross of being correct or even close to it.

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  3. you also failed to mention that a-rod is gay and that his mom's a whore.

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  4. Duly noted. Can I quote you on that?

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