If there was ever a movie made about the business side of baseball, the villian of the movie would be clear: the MLB players union. Now I'm not one to complain about what other people make. Alex Rodriguez makes more in a year than some small countries, but he also brings in more revenue than those countries, so it's all fair play. You're paid what you are worth, and your value is in regards to what you bring in to your company.
That being said, we're in horrible economic times. People across the country are losing jobs, retirement plans are taking huge dips in value...and the MLB players union is filing a grievance over charitable donations.
According to the LA Times, the MLB players union is filing a grievance against 22 clubs that include charitable donation clauses in new contracts. The situation stemmed from the two year, $45 M contract that Manny Ramirez signed. Part of the deal included a clause that Manny donate $500,000 per year (assumed to be two years to match the length of the deal) to the Dodgers' charity.
As much as I sympathize with the hardship that Manny will see from watching his total earnings cut down from $45 M to $44 M with this donation, I am in shock at the actions by the players union.
Here we are in a horrible economic situation, and athletes are being paid millions of dollars to play a game. We accept and support that by going to the games and being fans of the sport. And despite spending what little spare cash we have in the budget on the sport, the players union decides that they're going to raise a fuss over players paying about one percent of their salary to charity.
For comparisons sake, Manny will be donating 1.1% of his salary to charity. If you make $50,000 per year, that's a $555 donation. That's one less trip to McDonalds for regular people, and one less trip to...well, it kind of scares me thinking about how Manny might spend his money.
The Pirates are most likely one of the teams involved in the grievance. As we've seen with the extensions of guys like Doumit, McLouth, and Maholm, when a player is signed, they agree to make a donation to the local charities.
According to the LA Times article, the Dodgers give their players an option as to how much they want to donate. It's not like these players are being told to donate a certain amount, which means if a player doesn't want to participate, they can put $0.
All in all, the players union never ceases to amaze me. When I was younger my mom always told me to choose my battles. Of course that usually came after a fight with my brother, which spawned from an intense video game battle with me winning, and him hitting the reset button before the game could finish. There's no choosing battles behind that. You just fight.
This is a situation that can't help the players union at all. They stand to gain a meaningless 1% of income in a situation where each player is pretty much set for life. That's not worth the public backlash if this gets made in to a bigger issue about how the union is trying to stop charitable donations in the midst of a huge economic crisis. But what do I know? I make all of my charitable donations willingly.
I Sponsored His Baseball Reference Page For A Reason
31 minutes ago
Manny'll get a $1,000,000 tax write-off over 2 years if he itemizes.