Mark Teixeira Dumps Scott Boras

Oh thank heavens for that! Without Boras and a union, someone like Barry Zito might only make $100MM of guaranteed money to be terrible instead of the much more fair $126MM. Stick it to the man!

Pensions are a thing of the past, unless you’re in a union or work for the government. 40 hour work weeks are also not a guaranteed benefit, depending on your profession/workplace, but by-and-large, the only people I know who enjoy a guaranteed 40 hour work week are government employees (non-critical), union labor workers, and people in administrative positions (not the administrators, but the data entry people, etc, that are paid hourly).

Unions were a force for good in this country, at one time, but now they wield political power and not always in the best interest of their constituents or customers (teachers union comes to mind).

I think that players unions are overall a good thing because they’ve helped the players make more money and take care of themselves for the long haul.

I cringe when I read stories of professional baseball and football players (up until at least the early 70s) who had to work another job in the offseason to pay the bills (just to get by) as well as the fact that they were basically traded like baseball cards, like property, with no control or say in transactions (as far as I’m aware). Even though the situation has tipped (seemingly) in the players favor with all these big contracts, it’s nothing compared to how exploited athletes were in the first half (and into the 2nd half) of the 20th century.

What was your point?