Precisely when did a contract become a one-way deal?
And the answer is pretty simple. When it's an employment contract. Because of that whole no slavery or involuntary servitude thing in the United States, people cannot be forced to work under a contract if they don't want to. Yet the employer is always on the hook for the money if it wants to get rid of an employee under contract without just cause. Them's the breaks.
It's obvious who the focus of the column is going to be, but Dan cannot get to things before getting a few lashes in on Manny Ramirez and Curt Schilling, the latter who had the gall to get injured after signing a contract.
Dan goes on to spout off, blithely ignorant of both the facts and the law. Coaches skip out on contracts all the time. When a head coach opening comes around they cannot wait until the end of their contract to take it because someone else will. It's the nature of the system. And do you know what? Everybody knows it; the players, the coaches, the athletic directors.
And do you know what else? A smart AD can do something about it. When Rich Rodriguez left West Virginia for Michigan, he had to pay WVU something like $4 million to break his contract. That's what smart people do, they negotiate the terms of the contract in order to protect themselves. Dumb people rely on a handshake and looking somebody in the eye
Dan has all the other BC talking points that the media has picked up: "But Jags promised" (Look up the parol evidence rule, Dan); "he has no shot at the job"; and "it was more about not telling DeFilippo." These scattershot arguments belie their validity.
Finally, who cares? It's BC and the coach took decent teams to the conference championship in a weak league and promptly got smoked.
8 comments:
Shank, please enter the current era. We now live in a transactional society.
You are only stating your opinions regarding Jag. You are off the mark when dealing with today’s reality.
“A transactional society undermines social values and loosens moral constraints. Social values express a concern for others. They imply that the individual belongs to a community, be it a family, a tribe, a nation, or humankind, whose interests must take precedence over the individual's self-interests. But a transactional market economy is anything but a community. Everybody must look out for his or her own interests and moral scruples can become an encumbrance in a dog-eat-dog world. In a purely transactional society, people who are not weighed down by any considerations for others can move around more easily and are likely to come out ahead"
Understand!?
Or do you want to have total control like the Communist?
Manny understood that the Sox (especially Monkey Brain) had no intention of keeping “Manny” around any longer. If Manny wanted to screw the Sox he would’ve “cooperated” till the end and then retired after the 2008 season. Sox are lucky they got Bay. They can thank Manny for that.
Jag is in the same boat. He wants to be free.
Shank, have you never experienced a “divorce”? Why be tied down into misery?
g
I wonder what take Shaughnessy would have regarding Jay Mariotti--a sports media hack columnist in Chicago who signed a deal and then reneged on it. My guess is that this would be 'different' because Mariotti and Shaughnessy are 'kin' dontchaknow.
lmao... that didn't take long...Schilling ripped Shank a new one in his "38 pitches" piece....too comical
The worst development ever for media mouthpieces like Shaughnessy is when their subjects start punching back. Used to be, it was a one-way street of venom from the columnists. Now, they get as good as they give. Bravo, 38 Pitches! Best-ever news is that the value of WEEI probably exceeds that of the Boston Globe...which means Schilling has aligned himself with an entity that will win. Shaughnessy is saddled to an entity that won't. With apologies to Rick Petino: "Jack Welch ain't walking through that door, folks!" Bwahahahaha!
Here's the thing about this douche bag's article that pisses me off-it has no logic to it, and it's completely one-sided.
First of all, going to the NFL from college is a PROMOTION and it's normal. If you lose a coach to the NFL, you grab the next up and comer and say "so and so went to the NFL from our school. You could be next. Get in here, coach your ass off, recruit, have good teams, and the NFL will come calling with their big bucks because we are nation wide." It's a recruiting tool for the University/college.
Second, there's another side to this pancake, my dear CHB. What about when a guy signs a lower contract and because of league rules, he's paid ridiculously low. Or do you really think Jonathan Paplebon would be making what he makes right now, or maybe say, I don't know, $12 million a year somewhere? Or how about Cassel throwing for over 3,000 yards and making probably less than a million a year? Did the Patriots give him bonus for great work? Do the Red Sox say "Hey Pap, we know we have you under contract for a while because you're young, but because we like to be fair, let's rip up your deal and pay you market value."
I don't think so. And in football, when the guy's cap number becomes a liability, he gets cut. Ask Lawyer Milloy and Rosie Colvin how that goes.
But more to the point, contracts are business deals. This isn't 1968 anymore, and we don't sit down over a beer and sign a one page contract, the majority of which being clean white paper.
Is Shaughnessy for real? Are the curls to tight? He's been in this business for over 30 years and he can't figure out that players use ownership and and ownership uses the players and that's the way it goes?
I'm a Boston fan, but when Posey went to the Hornets because they gave him more money, god bless him. If Posey was walking down the street, stepped off a curb and ripped up his knee, neither the Celtics nor the Hornets would be tripping over themselves to sign the guy.
ANd likewise, Posey isn't going to turn down an extra few million a year because of "loyalty." Nor should he.
A contract is what it is: an agreement. You come to work for this amount of time, you get paid this amount. You don't come, you don't get paid. We can fire you. If we do, then we have to pay you. If you want to resign, fine, but we don't have to pay you.
Both sides are protected.
But this was a slap at Schilling (yet again) and a slap at Ramirez (who deserves it).
Shouldn't we be pissed? We're supposed to be getting award winning columns and instead we get this douche bag who was never an athlete who is pissed at everyone who is.
Okay, someone wrote that the Sox can "thank" Manny for getting Bay. I don't agree with that. I don't agree with CHB either, but I don't agree with Manny being a benevolent guy either.
Comparing Manny's situation to the BC coach is like comparing a DNA strand to Shaquille O'Neal: they aren't the same.
In Manny's case, he was laying down on the job. It was the middle of the season, he'd show up to work, and once he got there, he wouldn't bother to do anything. That's fraud. You're basically saying "Yeah, I'm going to work. Don't worry about me," and then you turn around and do nothing but still collect the check.
The BC coach was inquiring about a promotion AFTER work. The season's over dude. The job interview took like what, maybe three or four hours round trip?
He wasn't committing fraud against his employers by saying "I'll do my job," then showing up to work, and going through the motions.
CHB's other allegation is that Schilling didn't prepare properly. (BTW-he compares Schilling to "Chris Farley." Shaughnessy knows that Farley is dead, right? He's not that out of touch, is he?) If that were true, that's fraud as well.
The BC coach didn't skip team practices to go to the Jets interview. He didn't just go "Yeah, whatever. I dont' care what play we run. Punt it, whatever..."
He coached the team and did his job. What's the problem?
He wanted a promotion and tried for it. So?
JJS37,
Take a bigger view on the Manny episode and you will see the similarities to the BC/Jag situation.
Manny wanted out of "options" contract so that he could go work somewhere else. Jag wanted the same.
Manny could've retired at year end and the Sox would not have had any compensation (i.e. Bay).
g
Anonymous, You can't take a bigger view of the Manny thing. You can't. Especially the way Shank is using it.
He uses it as a fair comparison between someone who clearly and obviously laid down on the job on more than one occasion (refusing to pinch hit; refusing to swing the bat vs. the Yankees; refusing to get on the team bus, etc) and someone who was interviewing for a job that paid more money with higher visibility, which by the way, is the NORM in college football.
It's not the NORM to lay down on the job in professional baseball.
Plus, if Manny wanted to retire, and the Sox would get "no compensation," then that's fine. Let him retire. It's his choice. Should he want to come back, the Sox would control his rights.
Shank tries to draw a parallel that simply doesn't exist.
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