Clearly the only thing that matters to this "union" is money, which is quite sad considering most of its members are financially set for life. When you reach that level of money don't other quality of life issues like where you live, and maybe even, God forbid, winning, take priority. Obviously they do in Alex's case.
Don't get me wrong, Alex made his own bed when he signed the contract and he knew the rules going in. It just seems like in the game the union is playing, money is the only way to keep score.
Steve's Mariners and other stuff blog has his take on the union.
Update: Joe Sheehan of Baseball Prospectus has also posted today on A-Rod and the union. He makes some good points in his argument but I stand by my original post. If Alex essentially wants to buy changing teams, I see no reason why he should not be allowed to do it - if he thinks it's worth it. There is nothing to any of this if the player does not agree. Joe Sheehan implies a slippery slope here:
We saw this, only with less subtlety, when MLB basically extorted more road trips from the Expos by threatening to go Rachel Phelps on them if they didn't agree to another 22 games in Puerto Rico. Is it that hard to see, if this deal goes through with Rodriguez taking $20 mil., $30 mil., $40 mil. less, a future where teams actively alienate their superstars in an effort to push them into trades in which they have to take less money to get out of town?
I'm not sure how much sense this makes. First of all, how much alienation can someone take for $20 Million. I'm sure there are plenty of folks with truly terrible jobs that would be willing to put up with a LOT for that much cash. It's just interesting to me that the union is drawing a line here after totally caving during the last CBA negotiations. For all intents and purposes there is a salary cap is baseball today, something that I cannot believe the union agreed to. To take this stand for one player after that is closing the barn door after the horses are already out.
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