Masahiro Tanaka is barely 25 years old, and soon will become a multi-millionaire. His sudden wealth will come from America’s raging emphasis on sports.
Tanaka is a pitcher, a very good one whose fastball and splitter, a pitch that looks like a fastball but has a devastating break at the plate, leave batters flailing at air. He is the hottest commodity in baseball, having won 24 games last summer in Japan without a loss and 53 of 62 games over the past three years.
Executives of several U.S. teams are salivating at the thought of Tanaka being on the mound for them when the 2014 season opens in April. For his services they are willing to pay $100 million, or more.
That so much money is available to pay men to play a boy’s game is distressing when 15 percent of Americans live in poverty and the number of poor in other countries is much more prevalent. Baseball isn’t unique, other sports also spend lavishly.
Tanaka cashing in on America’s demand for winning professional sports teams is no different than CEOs and other high-level executives siphoning off millions of dollars in salaries, when those whose labor generates money for those exorbitant salaries in comparison work for infinitely less.
For years the gap between the haves and the have-nots, many who struggle just to make ends meet, has grown at an alarming rate.
Anyone who rails about the inequality is labeled as a liberal, socialist, or worse. Realist would be a better description.
Distribution of wealth has been out of kilter in the U.S. for years and there is no indication that it will change anytime soon.
Kansas isn’t immune.
Distressing funding for education, leaving thousands who could benefit from federally funded Medicaid on the outside and turning a cold shoulder to safety net programs for needy of all ages aren’t signs of progress. And it’s a ruse when it’s called a means of stimulating the economy.
Those who should be striving most to care for all Kansans, and have the ability to do so, just don’t seem to care.
That’s the message that should resonate when legislators they take their seats in the capitol this week.
— Bob Johnso
Professional sports the perfect example for pay discrepancies
