Zito: "It was the money"

Unusually frank quote from Zito in SF Chronicle Gwen Knapp's excellent piece. Would be nice to see more athletes acknowledge how their ridiculous salaries affect them. And I'll admit it, I have a hard time not resenting them while so many others are suffering so much these days.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/05/04/SP5S1D9GC1.DTL&type=sports

 

Are you a socialist?

 

Pretty soon Obama will tell him he's made enough money.

On a non-political note (lol), hey, I appreciate the guy's honesty. It's not like Mike Hampton saying he chose Colorado because the schools were good.

 

Zito Money a drop in the bucket. In span of 5 years through 2007 Lehman Brothers paid out 50 billion in employee bonuses.

In 2009 Goldman earned 2.3 billion and had bonus pool for 983 employees of 5 billion.

 

You can't talk about this without talking about the cluster of remarkably-stupid owners, in all sports.

Of course, Texas Ranger ownership has been a monument to
moronicism for decades, but the recent incarnation takes the cake.
"Stop us . . . before we spend again! . . . "

Hey, guys, before you sign some players to ridiculous contracts,
why don't you spend some money judiciously, and hire people who
know good, sound personnel when they look at 'em? Just asking.

 

Not looking to start anything, it just made me laugh.

 

Hampton to Colorado has to be one of the worst free agent signings ever.

 

Surely not more than Pavano to the Yankees? At least Hampton played a couple games

 

Carlos Lee, Astros, 6 years, $100 million

 

Not even close - they got some good years out of that one. Much more than Wells or Soriano produced.

 

Rogers Clemens, 2007, $28 million. He went 6-6 with a 4.18 ERA.

 

It was good for Hampton though. His kids got to be in a good school system.