Spying Dollars and Sense

 I’ve always been fascinated by onetime White Sox catcher Moe Berg, of whom it was said he could speak seven languages—which was true—and hit in none of them (a career .243 hitter).  In his post-baseball life, Berg was an American spy during WW II.

Berg didn’t like other people to read his newspapers; to him the paper was a living thing, and anyone beating him to it killed it.  I’m pretty much the same way.  Furthermore, stories off the Internet aren’t alive in the way a newspaper story is.

Like in today’s NYT (we’re one of those weekend subscribers).  The sports’ section had a story on Yankees’ pitcher C.C. Sabathia, going on 36 come July and 305 pounds, right now.  His record as a starting pitcher the last two years stands at 9-14, with a 4.86 ERA.  Guess who’s in line to make $25 million this year whether or not he cracks the starting rotation?

If I were a Yankee fan, that would be enough for me to blow my top.  Given that the Yankees received somewhere between $220-321 million in public subsidies (teams like to lowball what they get at the trough) for their new ballpark, my body would pretty much vaporize.  I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again: taxpayers should not have to subsidize dumb decisions made by the front office.  Too bad that message is Greek to public officials time and again.

Where’s Moe Berg when you need him the most?