How Long Can We Underwrite Players’ Obscene Salaries?

You’re a Yankee fan and you’d like to go see a game at the Stadium. But then you consider the high ticket prices (except the nose-bleed seats), the $9 beers and the $7.50 hot dogs, the parking and the obscene price of gas, and decide that your seat in front of the TV will do just fine.

The trip to the Stadium will have to wait.

You know what? I’ve joined the I’m-not-going-to-support-the-players-stratospheric-salaries-any-longer club. I’ve decided that I am no longer willing to shell out my hard-earned cash to watch A-Rod and CC and Tex and A.J. and cast. Can’t afford it. Don’t think they’re worth it.

Some background: I grew up rooting for the Brooklyn Dodgers in an era when ballplayers – even the superstars – needed off-season jobs to pay their bills. As sports editor of the Waterbury Republican-American, I had the opportunity to cover the Munson-Jackson-Guidry-Chambliss championship Yankee teams of the 1970s.

About 15 years ago, after realizing that Joe Torre and the majority of the new Yankees were good guys, I began to root for the team in pinstripes. I still want them to win, but decided that I just can’t underwrite those huge salaries anymore. It’s almost immoral.

Now, let’s delve a bit deeper into this maze of ten-figure wages, and I think you’ll be unpleasantly surprised at what we discover.

Alex Rodriguez, the game’s highest-paid player, will receive $32 million this season. If A-Rod were to appear in all 162 games (which he won’t, since he’s already missed a few), the $32 million breaks down to $197,530.86 per game.

With or without steroids, the soon-to-be-36-year-old third baseman is one of baseball’s all-time great players, but no athlete – or performer – is worth this kind of money.

CC Sabathia is the next highest-paid Yankee, at $24,285,714 this season. If the 6-foot-7 left-hander were to duplicate his 34-start workload in each of the past two years in the Bronx, that annual salary computes to $714,285.70 per start.

Sabathia may be one of the top five starting pitchers in all of baseball, and seems to be a good guy to boot, but he’s being paid too much.

The No. 3 Yankee in the payroll category is Mark Teixeira, who checks in with $23.125 million this season. If the switch-hitting first baseman were to appear in all 162 games (he’s already missed one), that wage averages out to $142,746.91 per game.

I admire Teixeira as a power-hitter and fielder – he’s one of the finest first basemen I’ve ever seen – and he’s on track to earning a plaque in the Baseball Hall of Fame, but his compensation is unseemly.

The fourth highest-paid Yankee is the quirky right-hander, A.J. Burnett, who will pull down $16.5 million this season – and in each of the next two seasons as well.

If Burnett were to equal his 33 starts of last season (and presumably be more effective than his 2010 numbers, 10-15 W-L, 5.26 ERA), his salary will compute to $500,000 per start. Burnett may possess a world of stuff, but the results aren’t there. His career record is just 114-103, with a bloated ERA of 3.99. The Yankees are paying this guy far too much.

The three remaining members of the Core Four rank 5-6-7 on the team’s 2011 payroll – Mariano Rivera ($14,911,701), Derek Jeter ($14,729,365) and Jorge Posada ($13.1 million).

Messrs, Rivera and Jeter are certain first-ballot Hall of Famers, and Posada has been an integral part of six Yankee pennant winners and four world championship teams, but each is overpaid.

Rivera, although 41, seems to retain the magic that has made him the most dominant relief pitcher of all time (13 saves, 1.80 ERA). If he were to duplicate his 61 appearances of last season, his salary computes to $244,454 per game or $248,528 per inning.

Jeter, who will turn 37 on June 26, is on the down side of a marvelous 17-season career; he’s batting just .257 and his range in the field is shrinking. Across 162 games, his salary averages out to $90,922 per game.

Posada, who will be 40 on Aug. 17, is fading; even with his recent spurt, his batting average (.183) lingers south of the Mendoza line, and he’s relinquished his catching duties to newcomer Russell Martin. Across 162 games, his salary equates to $80,864 per game.

As most of us know, the Yankees have the highest payroll in baseball – $202,689,028 this season. The Phillies are a distant second, at $172,976,379, and the Red Sox are third, at $161,762,475. (The Kansas City payroll is dead last, at $36.126 million, or just slightly more than A-Rod by himself.)

Ticket and concession prices throughout major league baseball, as well as in the NFL, NBA and the NHL, have become increasingly out of reach for most of us in the middle class.

It’s gotta end.