Bean Town Boycott??

As is widely known the Red Sox and A's will be opening up the MLB season on the 25th of this month in Japan. It is no surprise that MLB is branching out with regular season games in a country that already has a similar love for the game. Why the boycott you say? Well it turns out that while the players will get $40,000 each in stipens to travel to Japan the coaches and supporting staff will get nothing. The millionaire players will receive more than a lot of people make in a year to spend three or four days in Japan while the under paid coaches and support staff (some of whom make only $30,000 a year) would be forced to fend for themselves.

How fucked up is this? Major League baseball a multi billion dollar business can't pony up some money to make sure the coaches and support staff of two of their teams can eat or enjoy themselves representing them in a foreign country. The Dodgers and Padres went to China this past week to play an exhibition game in front of 12,500 people, each player received $3000 while again the coaches and support staff were stiffed. For whatever reason the Padres and Dodgers didn't complain about this. They accepted it as part of their duty as amabadors of the game and didn't complain.

The Red Sox however refused to take the field in their final exhibition game today until this was resolved as well as refusing to go to Japan if the coaches were not properly compensated. The A's had no idea about the discrepancy but once informed they of course joined the Red Sox players in the boycott. Major League baseball came through in the end to resolve this potential disaster but it's still amazing to me that it had to come to this.

First of all don't these coaches have representation when MLB and the Players Association negotiate these kind of trips. Who speaks up for them? It's a good thing the Red Sox players pay attention to details and I would say I support their boycott to an extent. However, if each of them is getting $40,000 for the trip you'd think if nothing else each player could throw some money in the pot to help take care of their coaches. I mean who the hell spends 40 G's on "expenses" plus aren't these guys already overpaid without having to get perks like expense checks. Next thing you know they'll be requesting reimbursement for mileage because they can't afford to keep gas in their Hummers and BMW's on the way into the ball park.