Will Joe Torre get roasted like Spree?

If their world series titles depended on a certain chemistry between specific players, then why pay a manager $8 million a year. What you are saying is that it was the players who made them win. It's bad business to pay a manager who is, apparently, inconsequential.

 

The amount didn't matter in the Pulitzer/World Series hypothetical I was suggesting above.

The amount was the very crux of the issue with Sprewell, because he said he couldn't feed his family on a gazillion per year - an insult to every wage-earner in America.

 

And now we've come full circle, because Twoback suggested at the beginning that there was more similarity between Torre and Sprewell than most of us recognized. It's true that Sprewell's comments were ridiculous and much more inflammatory than Torre's, of course. But the similarity is that both men showed a loss of perspective in regards to the sick amount of money they'd been offered. Torre struck the same note as Sprewell when he said he was insulted by a $3 million incentive. But because it was Torre, and because he said it in a subtler way, hardly anyone pointed that out.

And by the way, after reading Sprewell's quotes, is it possible that they were tongue-in-cheek? Maybe he really is that big an asshole, but the Sally Struthers stuff suggests to me that he might have been partly joking.

 

A professional athlete with five children from the same woman? Rookie. ...

 

I know, but the part about them turning up on Sally Struthers commercials reads like an attempt at humor.

 

Me!

But your example is full of holes.
First of all, before I'm called in, even on an economy of scale, I've got to be making more than everybody else in the business. Even if you take out the big-money columnists like Mr. Tony and Lupy and J-Dub, I'd still have to be making a chunk. Then, I'd have to be in the position where I'm given remarkable advantages -- beyond my salary -- toward the winning of said Pulitzer Prize. Essentially, I'd get an unlimated travel budget (comparable to the Yankees' unlimited player payroll and development money) and probably a staff to assist the work.
What are the odds that any of us would be in that circumstance?
Nice try, though.

 

The offer was made to be turned down. That in itself is insulting.

And really, blame Torre all you want. Given the resources at his disposal, Brian Cashman did a lousy job putting this team together.