Thursday, January 27, 2011

Just Say No...to Millions of Dollars??

This is quite a story, about a major league pitcher who walked away from millions of dollars because he didn't feel he deserved it.

Pitcher Spurns $12 Million, To Keep Self-Respect

The guaranteed contract is a fundamental principle of Major League Baseball, as
much a part of the game as balls, strikes and outs. No matter how a player
performs, or how his body holds up, he must be paid in full. Only in rare cases
— an injury sustained off the field, gross personal misconduct — does a player
forfeit his paycheck.

But the case of Gil Meche is rare for an entirely
different reason. Meche, a 32-year-old right-handed pitcher, had a contract that
called for a $12 million salary in 2011. Yet he will not report to Surprise,
Ariz., with the rest of the Kansas City Royals for spring training next month.
He will not have surgery to repair his chronically aching right shoulder. He
will not pitch in relief, which involves a lighter workload.

Meche
retired last week, which means he will not be paid at all.

“When I
signed my contract, my main goal was to earn it,” Meche said this week by phone
from Lafayette, La. “Once I started to realize I wasn’t earning my money, I felt
bad. I was making a crazy amount of money for not even pitching. Honestly, I
didn’t feel like I deserved it. I didn’t want to have those feelings again.”

I hope he makes a second career of giving speeches to corporate CEOs-- some of them could certainly stand to learn from his example!

10 comments:

Money Beagle said...

It's a nice story but keep in mind that he's already earned like $50,000,000 over his career so he probably just figured that the extra money really wasn't going to be able to spend what he has now, so the extra $12,000,000 really wasn't that big a loss.

Still, it would be nice if more athletes had a similar line of thinking at some point in their careers.

Kevin Brehm said...

He could have donated the $12 million to his favorite charity and received a nice tax deduction. Instead, it will return to the owner's pockets for less noble causes.

Catherine said...

I agree with Kevin!

Ryan DeLeon said...

That's easy to say, but thats kind of like being a Robin Hood. He wanted to retire so he really would not have earned his salary this year. Yes athletes make tons of money over their careers but that shouldnt change your opinion of what he did. How many of them would walk away from guaranteed money? Forget about greed, most of them simply dont handle money well and they actually would need the money to pay their ridiculous bills. He obviously has done well insvesting his money and not spent all or more than he made like many pro athletes foolishly do.

Ryan DeLeon said...

investing*

Kathleen S. said...

Personally, I admire the guy for refusing the $$ on the grounds that he wasn't earning it, regardless of what happens to that money now.

Janet said...

I agree with Kathleen. I think this says a lot about his character.

simplesimon said...

While it is a bit noble of him to give up all that money, he's thinking about it the wrong way.

He did deserve that money because at the time of the signing he was healthy and expected to stay healthy in the future.

He injured himself *because* of baseball. Shouldn't baseball be paying him for future lost wages similar to worker's compensation?

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