A-Rod is consistently a premier thirdbaseman, but fans question if he deserves his salary. | Keith Allison/flickr.com
Imagine getting paid $203,703 a night? I can’t but Alex Rodriguez received this every night during the past 162 game season.
People feel that baseball players and professional athletes in general are overpaid.
I feel that if you are the best at what you do, there should not be a limit to how much money one earns. Alex Rodriguez made about $33 million from his contract and endorsements this year.
People say, “Oh, I would hit a baseball for millions of dollars a year.” Well, I’m sorry you can’t.
These athletes are unbelievably blessed with talent. All of these players have such immense and extraordinary ability that they make the game look effortless.
In fact, good luck hitting a 96 MPH fastball moving down and in on your hands with a wood bat.
If you were to put one of these players with a cluster of amateurs, they would stand out to such a degree, it would be astonishing.
Playing baseball is what these men do for a living. For a lot of them, this is all they will ever do. Alex Rodriguez works harder at his job, arguably than any one person works at their given job.
He trains all year round to continue to get better. Training varies between different players. Athletes such as Alex Rodriguez, Roger Clemens, Tiger Woods and Kobe Bryant, who are known for their work ethics, will train for hours on any given day during the season.
Alex Rodriguez trains harder than anyone and he is already the best. The players around him are amazing, yet he is still at a completely different level. So why does he not deserve to make these large sums of money?
People say it is just a game and athletes shouldn’t be paid so much. It is not just a game. Billions and billions of dollars get dumped into professional sports.
In fact, professional sports are the 11th most lucrative business in the entire world.
It is a form of entertainment and people are willing to pay the big bucks to watch these athletes perform.
If nobody came to watch, Alex Rodriguez wouldn’t get paid what he does.
People come to games and buy his jerseys. But because of his god given ability and legendary work ethic, Alex Rodriguez goes to the bank.
An extensive amount of money is generated through baseball. Capping some of it would only hurt the development and growth of the game and players would potentially lose incentive.
If there is a limit to how much one player can make in order to be affordable and the team is at that limit, where do you go from there?
In the NFL there are numerous contract disputes and holdouts of players annually because teams and owners are pressed for money.
They can’t exceed the salary cap. It is an unnecessary constriction that would damage the game.
So, is nine months out of the year devoid of a vacation easy for you?
Is traveling to different cities approximately every three days across the nation undemanding for you? Is being away from your family for most of the year trouble-free for you? Is hitting a 96 MPH fastball effortless for you?
If so, you should send your resume in to become a professional baseball player.
Tim Shanahan can be reached at tshanahan@spartans.ut.edu.
Loading ...
are you kidding me? anyone can go to college and be able to teach but not everyone can hit a 96 mile an hour fastball coming straight for them.
I’m sorry but these athlete deserve it. If you take away all that they have to pay in taxes and to their agents and people who work for them they make same as a doctor. If you were the best doctor in your field you wouldn’t want to have a salary cap, that is what you’re asking of an athlete. Besides NFL teams have a salary cap for the total amount of the team
Hello Michael brush, I would like to respond to your poor response on the article. I do not understand how it helps the economy when they get paid over 1 million, and they do not spend it on helping the poor. Teachers teach the younger generation, which is the key to improving our society, and only get paid 32,000 per year. Teachers help the economy more than overpaid,selfish,professional athletes who only think about their paycheck,instead of starving kids in other countries -even the U.S.! An example would be Kobe Bryant who is payed over $50 million per year,and he gets a salary increase of 32,000 per basket which is equivalent to a teacher’s yearly salary. Well, you still think he is super talented, and he is a good role model. Guess what? HE RAPED AN INNOCENT WOMAN, AND HE DIDN’T GET IN TROUBLE! If you don’t believe me, look at the court papers. Oh, and F.Y.I.,you spelled tremendously wrong.
this is totally unfair. athletes get paid way more than they’re worth, when teachers and other heroes are stuck with a lowsy minimum each year, and they’re the ones acually DOING something for society.
if these athletes didn’t get so much cash, we could improve educations, roads, and hello? we could lower taxes!
i really hink people in the military should be paid more. i dont care if there are hundreds of them! if they are doing something PRODUCTIVE, then they should be repaid bigtime.
also, if the money athletes got every year went to the government, after a few years, we could change the world by finding a cure for cancer, ending global warming, or even stopping world hunger.
why do the people with the most important jobs get the lowest salaries and the least recognition when all these athletes are doing is playing a couple of games and they get everything they want? people who are constantly saving lives are seriously taken for granted
i totally disagree. if these athletes really love playing, then they shouldnt care about what they get from it.
i don’t like the fact that The President Barrock Obama gets less money than a ROOKIE baseball player a year!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
that is ridicuilus that the fact of President Barrok Obama gets less money than a ROOKIE in a game of baseball…!
Yah it’s cool, but do they really derserve that much monney
kinda sorta good i guess not bad at all
hi this is a good wed sit very intresting
this is lots of cool information thanks for real im not kidding good info
rape up your butt
these people get paied twice as much as a teacher in just one night
im in your house
this site smells like poop and your mom
I agree with Jack Sparrow. Athletes get paid too much. President Barack Obama gets paid $400,000 a year while a rookie gets paid $1.4 million. Interesting huh?
GOOD info thanks
agree, people who say they’re overpaid just look at the numbers and don’t look at why they are paid so much. It’s because there are fans of these teams that pay to see the games, pay for merchandise, companies pay for their ads to air during games ………… etc, etc. They are the direct cause for the flow of all this money, and because sports is a big business that money should go to the people responsible for the cash inflows to sports teams. It’s either the thousands of players that make the money or the hundred or so pro team owners. They’re not overpaid, and look at the top athletes and how much they give away to charities and how much they help the economy move along, as they will spend that money, and they will usually spend it in the U.S. and not on foreign islands and villas like owners do.
This is right the proform to make money and they are tremendisly talented, they make money and that helps the economy
Sorry, I’m not going to sympathize with multi-millionaires just because they are talented and have to travel a lot. If talent were a pre-requisite for wage, there would be more rich people in the world.
I say we switch the salaries of athletes with teachers and professors.