Back in my day, we had to walk 8 miles in the snow for a loaf of bread!

I'm not sure how many more of these "CC and the Yankees are evil-- don't they know we are in a recession!" articles I can take. This one, by Bob Ryan of the Boston Globe, I like because it includes the classic yelling-at-kids-on-his-lawn tone, along with the irony that his beloved Red Sox are currently the front-runners to sign Mark Teixiera (who's seeking a $200 million contract).

The year was 1966.

[You know how the rest of this argument goes. Oh, the good ol' days when life was so much better because I could buy a ticket to a Celtics game for $3. Now, I was not alive in 1966, but I hardly think that I needed to be in order to confidently say that the "life was better back in the day" argument is wrong, and borders on insulting.

You know what else was happening in 1966? Race riots in San Fran, New York, Oakland, Baltimore, Cleveland, Detroit, etc. The poll tax had just been suspended. Laws banning interracial marriage had yet to be ruled unconstitutional. The Civil Rights Act was still two years from being signed into law. The first marital rape law was still TEN years away. Etc. Etc.

But yeah, being able to take in a Sox game with a dog and a beer for $5 balances things out.]

Yes, CC Sabathia is, by all accounts, a nice person and a worthy recipient of good fortune, but that much good fortune, and now? Do we have a right to be angry or repulsed?

[Here's the one thing people don't seem to bring up in these "professional athletes are evil greed-mongers" arguments. The people who own most of these professional sports franchises are the uber-wealthy. According to Forbes, the New York Yankees are worth $1.3 BILLION. Sportswriters and critics hardly ever seem to have a problem with the old white guys that own these teams amassing millions or even billions of dollars. But a kid who throws a ball for a living?? That's an atrocity!]

But the big southpaw is represented by the ham-handed Scott Boras, whose blind fidelity to his baseball clients sometimes leads him to make indefensibly arrogant and infuriating statements. Get back to me if you can unearth any Boras comment this week acknowledging the frightening economic times we live in. All he ever talks about is how much revenue there is in baseball and how deserving his clients are. He doesn't understand that sometimes we don't need to hear that.

[Here's another one you hear a lot. I'm not really sure why people expect Boras to do or say things that would actively make him bad at his job. He works for his CLIENTS. Not some dude in Southie who is wicked pissed about the economy.]

I'm not sure this will affect your opinion of CC Sabathia's $161 million, but I thought it was a good opportunity to vent.

[Professional Journalism: A "good opportunity to vent."]

Manny is Big Pimping (Himself all Over MLB)

It's really not fair to pick on Manny Ramirez because he is:
1) just about smart enough for the fourth grade and he knows it and
2) Scott Boras has taken advantage of that fact to turn Manny into the sort of evil, money-first type of player that fans hate because when you've made something like $200 million already in your career they're not buying that you need to pad for retirement.

That said, Manny pimping himself to the highest bidder is a mix between Donald Trump and Jenna Jameson in its craven disregard for what is right in pursuit of money.

But it's Manny pimping himself, so he can't help but sound ridiculous when he does it.

"The [price of] gasoline is up, so I'm up," said Ramirez, to a joking justification of why he is demanding $20 million plus from a team silly enough to give it to an aging crazy man (who, while completely awesome at baseball, will not always be awesome at baseball. This is the post-steroid era. Guys don't remain good late into their 30s without drugs. It's a fact).

The key question is not if the recent drop in gas prices will make his pay demands go lower (haha - get it!?), but if saying that is as ridiculous as Latrell Sprewell's comment about holding out because he has to feed his family.

I say yes.

And bear with me. This all comes back to together and ties up in a nice bow.

Sprewell could and still might randomly flip out and kill someone, meaning that anything he says needs to be taken seriously. Manny could and still might need help tying his shoelaces, meaning that he is ridiculous, but lovably so.

Boras, of course, is an evil demon man (probably on the payroll of Halliburton and clearly a fun hater) who I am trying to find a way to get Sprewell to flip out and kill.