ryan_howard_cash

After this raid of the house of a prominent blogger and this new Arizona immigration law, I really thought that American virtue was dying. And then last night I saw that the Phillies backed up the Brinks truck to Ryan Howard’s doorstep. And all seemed right with the world, at least for a little while.

There’s a lot of room to argue about this 5-year, $125 million extension of his current deal, which makes the Phillies infielder the second-highest paid player in baseball. Does Howard bring that much relative value to his team? Did the Phillies overspend on his power at the plate (25 homers, 141 RBI in 2009)? Who cares…I’m just happy that someone out there can still beat the system, still get an absurd amount of money for working hard at honing his craft. That just feels right to me.

I hear moaning about the absence of a salary cap in baseball all the time, as if it would magically tear asunder the Yankee empire and force the Marlins to spend more on player payroll than they do on their electric bill. Lost in these cries for “fairness” among teams is the concept of fairness toward the players. Ryan Howard is the best baseball player that hasn’t banged Madonna. He should be paid accordingly.