What’s All the Fuss? Pitcher Simply Got What He Deserved

Yo, Orel.

Is the war over? Is it safe to read the sports pages now?

I heard you signed for $7.9 million over three seasons. I guess that would be spring, summer and fall. Winter, you’re on your own.

The main thing is, it’s all over but the counting and now maybe we can talk some baseball. Get down to what’s really important. How’s the old soupbone, podnah? Ready to get out to the old ballyard and chuck the old apple down the old pike?

I hope so, because I’m sure tired of hearing all the squabbling about exactly how you and the Dodgers are going to divide up the team’s money.

I have to tell you, though, in all candor, that I think $7.9 million is a ridiculous amount of money to pay a baseball pitcher. I think the Dodgers should pay you $20 million, and tack on some incentive clauses.

This is a hard job, and you seem to do it well.

Anyone who says you’re overpaid has never stood on a little hill of dirt, facing Jose Canseco and his autographed telephone pole, you with your cowhide-wrapped ball of yarn.

I like your style. Who else can sing a hymn, check the scouting report in his back pocket, script out his postgame press comments, mentally review his computer disks, figure out a 3-and-1 pitch that will screw Darryl Strawberry knee deep into the batter’s box, and remind himself to take out the trash the next morning . . . all during his windup?

To me--a guy who has choked in the 10th frame of a bowl-off against his wife--this is talent. To me, you are underpaid. I’m serious.

You win the Cy Young, you are MVP in the World Series, you carry your team to a World Series championship, you praise God and Disneyland and Lasorda, and then people get all worked up because you ask for a pay raise.

Personally I think you’re worth three times what Steve Balboni makes. I would rather watch you perform on TV than Pat Sajak, any day.

Why all the fuss about negotiating a raise? It’s not as if you bought air time on TV, hired a backup choir and pleaded for public contributions. You took some of Peter O’Malley’s money. I can live with that.

Why this bothers people, I don’t know. If we have so doggone many socialists in this country, why do we keep electing Republican Presidents?

The numbers mean nothing to me. All I know about $7.9 million is that it’s more than the minimum wage and less than the national debt. But this is a society obsessed with big numbers, if I may wax philosophical. When the state lottery got to $56 million not long ago, I rushed out and bought a ticket. Then I thought, “Why didn’t I buy a ticket when the pot was at $6 million? Was I waiting until there was enough money there to make it worth my while?”

How much money is enough, or too much? I don’t know. For what you’ve done, $7.9 million seems fair.

But some of the grief you’re getting from the public right now, you brought on yourself during negotiating. If you were only looking for long-term financial security for your family, fine, but keep it to yourself, old bean. Were we supposed to worry that the arbitrator would stick you with the low-ball $2 million and your kids would have to get paper routes?

And that bit of melodrama, where you hinted that you would not sign with the Dodgers next season if you didn’t get your long-term deal right now? Bad form, even though the same basic emotional extortion worked for Oral Roberts.

Steve Sax left the Dodgers because he got his feelings hurt. Then you started hinting that you would do the same. Gee, you guys are sensitive. What are you, a pitcher or a poet?

Also, now that you have financial security for your family for at least three years, I hope you can cut back a little on the TV commercial work. The commercials aren’t bad, even the one where you claim, “I throw strikes in my BVDs,” but there should be a limit.

If I see an athlete endorse more than five or six products at once, I want to throw up in my BVDs.

That’s all the advice I have, big guy.

I’m glad you now feel “all warm and goosey about being a Dodger.” Who says money can’t buy warmth and gooseyness?

I don’t think there’s any doubt you’ll earn your money. In fact, I worry that you sold yourself too cheap. What if you have a sensational spring training? You’re locked into that $7.9 mil, baby.

But as Danny Ozark said, we’ll jump off that bridge when we come to it.