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Yankees refusing to pay A-Rod home run bonus a joke

I'm not sure where the New York Yankees have been for the past 20 years, but they should know the game got a little sideways on us for a while. In fact, not unlike the snow that howled past their office windows by Monday afternoon. It went this way and that way, and there was a lot of yelling, and some crying, and by the end a lot of folks were knee-deep in a real mess that, granted, was not snow at all.

Baseball – and baseball was not alone but has seemed like it at times – became a buyer-beware game. That meant you didn't always get what you paid for. On the other hand, for a good long time you got more than what you paid for, so in the end it looks like a tie.

Alex Rodriguez is due a $6 million bonus for surpassing Willie Mays on the all-time home run list. (AP)
Alex Rodriguez is due a $6 million bonus for surpassing Willie Mays on the all-time home run list. (AP)

Nobody, if I recall, gave back the home runs or the complete games or the 100-mph fastballs or the championships (or, most of all, the revenues) that came with the great PED blizzard of the past generation. Nobody cleared his voice and announced he would pass on the fingered or suspected drug users because the game should be honest. Hell, no. When you need a cleanup hitter, you buy yourself a freakin' cleanup hitter. Anybody around here wearin' a badge? How about a clerical collar? Thought not.

So, you got what you got. Some guys kept hitting or throwing a hundred. Others, not so much. But they – every single one of them – took home every penny they'd been promised. The players' union made sure of it.

I'm a little surprised the Yankees missed all of this.

Well, seven years after entering into a contract that would have them pay Alex Rodriguez $272 million over 10 years and another $30 million based on five home run milestones, the Yankees apparently believe they've been defrauded. According to the New York Daily News (and confirmed here), the Yankees would like to wriggle out from under the milestone bonuses, framed in Rodriguez's contract as a marketing agreement. The next $6 million installment is due in six home runs, which would make Rodriguez's career total 660 – Willie Mays' number. Rodriguez would also earn $6 million each for tying Babe Ruth (714), tying Hank Aaron (755), tying Barry Bonds (762) and surpassing Bonds.

Given the events of the past couple years, one of those events being Rodriguez's season-long suspension for PED usage (but that's just kind of the beginning), the Yankees, marketing experts they are, no longer think 660 is that big a deal. It probably means no stadium packed in anticipation of A-Rod catching the great Mays. No massive jersey sales. Just lonely bobbleheads, silently shaking their heads: "What? No. Never met the guy."

They're right, of course. They signed on for the great clean home run champion parade. They were wrong. Pay up.

Caveat evil empire.

The Yankees want their money back not because Rodriguez used performance-enhancing drugs, but because he was caught using performance-enhancing drugs. That seems slightly disingenuous. And more than a little retaliatory. And that's probably exactly where this came from and where we're still headed.

He sued them. They were aghast. He got busted. They were somewhat relieved. He got himself back in shape and prepared to play out the final three years of his contract. They signed Chase Headley. They want their money back.

And the problem as the Yankees see it now is $6 million for six home runs, which, if Rodriguez is healthy and skilled enough still (not unreasonable "ifs"), he could reach while swinging a selfie stick.

There are few things in sports more glorious than the Yankees presenting themselves as victims. One of them is the Yankees being petty.

Rodriguez has been a Yankee employee for 11 years, for better or worse. He was an MVP, twice. He was a World Series champion. He's hit 309 home runs as a Yankee in the regular season. He's held one press conference apologizing for using PEDs. Another one is coming, presumably. There've been other clumsy moments. He is who he is.

Then, the stuff gets really ugly, the future looks grim, the hips are rattling, the birthdays have flown by, there's $61 million (plus marketing agreements) on the books and this is the time to decide the contract is unfair. To decide he is not exactly what he said he was, or what you thought he was.

Today. Now. Really.

Grab a shovel.

Alex Rodriguez - Salary by Season | FindTheBest