SABATHIA TO DL

Is he really worth $23 million?

C. C. Sabathia, the 2007 AL Cy Young Award winner, felt a stiffness two days after his Aug. 3 start against the Mariners. A subsequent MRI exam was done and showed nothing wrong! The stiffness persisted after pitching Wednesday in Detroit against the Tigers. Throwing on flat ground Friday rather than throwing his regular bullpen session he still felt a mild discomfort.

"It's not any worse than it was after the first start, but our concern is it didn't go away," Girardi said. "As far as the concern, it's pretty low level, because it's not like it got any worse. He wants to pitch on Monday, which I'm not surprised (at) because he said he dealt with it before. We just decided, let's try to get it cleaned up now."

This is of course the second time Sabathia has been on the 15-day disabled list this year. It is this kind of thing that destroys baseball and eventually leads to lockouts and proves the insanity of these mega-bucks salaries. It is driving the price of baseball out the door and causing a diminishing of the product on the field.

Sabathia is being paid $23 million this year alone! That’s $767,000 a game based on 30 games a season as a starting pitcher! Over $8,333,000 approximately is lost in revenues from his missing 5 games he should have pitched but didn’t. How many companies can afford to pay someone that much money for nothing? Who really pays these salaries? Well if you are the New York Yankees of course, you own a cash cow and the sponsors who clamor to advertise with the Yankees will pay that bill along with the fan who goes to the ballpark and also subscribes to cable to watch them play! The average price of a ticket? $34.05 per ticket at Yankee Stadium in 2008. That means it will cost a father and son $64.10 to see a game. Most fans I think can’t afford that. That does not include parking if you drive and don’t want to run the risk of having your car stolen or broken into, or you running into a bad element around Yankee Stadium.

Sporting pricing and contracts for individual players are out of hand. With a spiraling economy, who can afford to pay that kind of money? How many people will go to the ballpark if Sabathia is NOT pitching that day compared to if he were?

You see the cost of seats in the new Yankee Stadium and how many remain empty? Instead of accommodating fans and trying to make games affordable, there is the arrogance of the owners who think that they can float these stadium and salaries costs on the backs of fans and sponsors. If the structure starts to cave in the way it is now, the game of baseball will be ruined forever.  The unions are a big part of the problem, the salaries are insane, the profits are through the roof for players, especially when the entering, first year salary of a rookie is: $480,000, that is the minimum! That should be the maximum for what it is worth.

That’s all I wrote, folks!