Like many other baseball fans, I had to sit down when I heard that Alex Rodriguez had signed a 10 year contract worth in excess of $252 million. At first I thought the announcers had somehow misplaced a decimal point somewhere but no, they repeated the news several times with the same result. I immediately changed the station to ESPN where they were to hold a press conference announcing the signing of A-Rod. I had to hear that. After all, I had believed Alex when he said it wasn't about the money. He wanted the chance to win a championship. Surely he could explain why he went to the Texas Rangers who have no pitching whatsoever. So the press conference began. First we heard from Tom Hicks the owner of the Rangers who stated this contract was probably even undervalued. My mind was numb at that quote. Next came Doug Melvin the General Manager who claimed that A-Rod would be a dominating force in baseball for the foreseeable future and that this deal would be looked upon as a bargain in the coming years. Melvin was followed by Rodriguez's agent Scott Boras who claimed that the deal was lower than what they wanted but A-Rod felt this was the right move regardless of the money. Then the press conference ended. It ended? Where was A-Rod? Oh, he wasn't in Texas at the time, he would be there in a few days. The guy signs a $252 million contract and he isn't even there? I began to contemplate the contract and tried to understand why Alex wasn't there. Then I came to the conclusion, he doesn't have time to attend these types of functions.
Alex Rodriguez turned 25 years old on July 27. If you take into consideration that scientists now calculate the life expectancy of an average American male to be 75 years old, Alex has a mere 50 years in which to spend $252 million. If we break this down, Alex Rodriguez has to spend at a rate of:
* $5,040,000 per year
* $420,000 per month
* $96,923.08 per week
* $13,846.15 per day
* $576.92 per hour
* $9.62 per minute
* $0.16 per second
These figures assume that A-Rod takes all of his money and places it under his mattress and earns no interest for the rest of his life. He can't afford to earn interest, there isn't enough time left in his life to be adding more money. So you can plainly see, Alex could not possibly attend something as trivial as a press conference. In his case, time really is money. If we take into consideration that the press conference lasted 30 minutes, that would have cost him $288.60 to sit and listen to people talk about him. That would have in turn put him way behind the spending curve that he would never be able to recover from. As it is, he will have to find a way to recoup his spending time during the games. Last season, the average American League baseball game lasted approximately 3 hours 15 minutes. The time that A-Rod spends playing a baseball game will cost him $1,875.06. You can quickly see that Rodriguez is fighting a battle of time. There is just not enough time left in his life for him to spend that much money. So please, don't bother him with trivial items such as press conferences. Time waits for no one, even at $0.16 per second.
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