Mike, we are about the same age. If you enjoy baseball you can find pleasure watching grade school, VFW, Legion, college, amateur, and minor league ball as well as relaxing while watching the Twins or other MLB teams. I'm sure you can do that. For example, Dundas and Miesville have wonderful parks and teams and it is a fun place to watch or play baseball. The money is irrelevant in most ways once the players are at the top level except for its undefined affect on the minor leagues. The complaints against Mauer's contract were 100% off base except as an idea that players should earn closer to a common salary, like a teacher, but ignoring that Mauer may have made triple his salary or more in business. Baseball is totally corporate and thus financially driven. The special exception status has created the game we watch today. If you haven't already done so, watch The Battered Bastards of Baseball. Despite the total manipulation of the product by MLB and all of its ridiculous faults (not setting rules a minimum of a year in advance being just one of many), baseball is still enjoyable to watch. Turn off the sound, which is almost exclusively advertising in one form or another, and let your mind wander. Bauer is fun to watch and that is enough. His salary has zero affect on our ability to enjoy the competition.

Mike, we are about the same age. If you enjoy baseball you can find pleasure watching grade school, VFW, Legion, college, amateur, and minor league ball as well as relaxing while watching the Twins or other MLB teams. I'm sure you can do that. For example, Dundas and Miesville have wonderful parks and teams and it is a fun place to watch or play baseball. The money is irrelevant in most ways once the players are at the top level except for its undefined affect on the minor leagues. The complaints against Mauer's contract were 100% off base except as an idea that players should earn closer to a common salary, like a teacher, but ignoring that Mauer may have made triple his salary or more in business. Baseball is totally corporate and thus financially driven. The special exception status has created the game we watch today. If you haven't already done so, watch The Battered Bastards of Baseball. Despite the total manipulation of the product by MLB and all of its ridiculous faults (not setting rules a minimum of a year in advance being just one of many), baseball is still enjoyable to watch. Turn off the sound, which is almost exclusively advertising in one form or another, and let your mind wander. Bauer is fun to watch and that is enough. His salary has zero affect on our ability to enjoy the competition.

What a wonderful post.  I really enjoy these thought out responses.  I doubt I will ever stop watching baseball, but I do tire of all the money talk and the emphasis on what is being paid out, how cheap a team owner is, etc.  Things like Bauer's contract simply amplify what I think is wrong.  On MLB.com I am thoroughly enjoying their essays on the negro leagues now.  It is the story, not the contract that interests me. 

Guys, I "think" I'm a little younger than you (graduated college in 1980)  but I appreciate what you're saying.

Bauer will now make more $$$ than 3 MLB teams entire 26 man roster.

The MLBPA loves the idea that baseball is the only league that doesn't have a salary cap. 

But the reverse of that is, the owners do not have a mandated "floor."  No league should have one-player making more $$ than 3 of their team's entire 26 man roster.

THAT is the definition of INSANITY !!

I had hoped Bauer would be signed by the White Sox so Bauer could disrupt the whole White Sox squad.  As it is, Bauer's signing with LA will only help the Padres.  Talk about team chemistry. Can you say "Oil and water"?. "Start the drone fleet's motors/."

By my rough estimate, Bauer will make about 150K per inning pitched.  That's about six or seven years of a teacher's salary.  If he completes seven innings, he will "earn" more than a teacher does in their entire career,  Something isn't right.

Guys, I "think" I'm a little younger than you (graduated college in 1980)  but I appreciate what you're saying.

 

Bauer will now make more $$$ than 3 MLB teams entire 26 man roster.

The MLBPA loves the idea that baseball is the only league that doesn't have a salary cap. 

But the reverse of that is, the owners do not have a mandated "floor."  No league should have one-player making more $$ than 3 of their team's entire 26 man roster.

 

THAT is the definition of INSANITY !!

Just to set the time frame = I graduated high school 1963.  Thanks for the comments.

By my rough estimate, Bauer will make about 150K per inning pitched.  That's about six or seven years of a teacher's salary.  If he completes seven innings, he will "earn" more than a teacher does in their entire career,  Something isn't right.

This old school educator would have had to work two and a half years to get the earnings from his one inning.  This is the perversion of our economy.  I would rather see him make this outrageous salary that have the owners pocket more millions, but the fact is the values of sports figures and sporting events has become too outrageous.   So what if they do not have fans buying tickets, they obviously have enough from radio and tv and other revenue sources.  

I see the salary of a division one football coach - P J FLeck earns $3.6 million, far below the salary of Bauer, but enough to hire 36 professors!  Things are so out of perspective that I have no rational way of writing about them.  And as I said, my first degree was in economics.