Arguing in Bars

Arguing in bars. I hate it. My buddy Justin is a huge liberal (as am I, no problems there), and he's very opinionated. Everytime we go drinkin somewhere, he gets into some kind of conversation with someone about politics. It can be a nice, quiet convo, or it can be a loud heated convo. Either way, bet on a convo happening.

I love politics, and I love discussing politics, but at bars (or when I'm drinking in general) I HATE doing it. I understand why he does it, and I don't fault him in anyway. But I think it's pointless, I'm not going to convince anyone during $1 mug night that Bush sucks. But I would get the other person and myself very annoyed during the process. So I make it a point not to talk politics when drunk. I'd rather be doing something productive when I'm drunk. Like failing with women or drunk dialing all my friends.

Anyway, tonight my roommate Ben was talkin to a friend of a friend and he pointed my way. The kid came over and started talking sports with me:

Kid - Do you hate Manny Ramirez?

Me - Uh, no, Manny is awesome.

Kid - But he left Cleveland for Boston.

Me - I know, but they offered him more $$ and it was his agent anyway

Kid - No, we offered him more than Boston, 171 million to 160.

Me - Uh, no we offered him 86 mill. [I was wrong, 86 million was their initial (re: lowball) offer]

Kid - No, it was 171, but 50 million of it was defered.

Me (getting annoyed) - No, Boston offered him more than we did. His agent went for the biggest offer.

Kid - No. But anyways, I hate Jim Thome too. You like Thome?

Me - I got no beef.

Kid - But it's the PHILLIES. They suck.

Me - We weren't that good either plus they gave him more years [re: more money].

Kid - We're good now.

Me - I hate life.

Wow. That is longer than I expected it to be. Oh well.

Anyways, I hate this shit.

First of all, I don't hold grudges on players who leave Cleveland. I'm not 12. Am I pissed at the time? Yes. But I understand it. I learned long ago that professional sports is a business.

In Thome's case, the yearly salaries were very close together. Phili's may have been a bit higher, but it wasn't much. The problem was, Thome was 32 at the time, this was going to be his last multi-year contract. The Phillies gave him 7 years, while the Tribe only gave him 6 (plus the 6th year was at the last minute). With the salary around 12 million a year, an extra year is a ton of money. A 39 year old Jim Thome won't be getting 12 million bucks as a free agent. So Thome went with the richer offer.

As for the contending thing, the Indians were on a downward trend in 2002 and didn't really show signs of life until 2004. The Phillies were supposed to be up and coming. And with a new ballpark.

Manny's is pretty simple. Boston is one of the sports big franchises (with the Yankees and Cubs). Plus they offered more money. If you're Manny's agent, you're looking for a few things:

A) Money
B) Contending team
C) Market opportunities (re: big market)
D) Money
E) Manny's Comfort Level
F) Money

They offered more money. End of story. They had Pedro and Nomar (so shy Manny didn't need the spotlight). They contend. And they are a huge market. Cleveland couldn't really compete, ESPECIALLY when they offered less money.

It bugged the shit out of me that nothing was going to be resolved during our discussion. If he keeps insisting that the Tribe offered Manny more money, what the hell do I do? Concede the point? "Ah yes, it makes complete sense that a baseball all-star left a condending team and the city he played his entire career in, to play another good baseball team. For less money."

So I stopped basically stopped the conversation. I was just gonna be more annoyed (as if I wasn't already) and I couldn't win. And the rest of the night blew also. The band there wasn't that good in my opinion (kept changing temp and 'jamming' when they can't jam.) They weren't bad, but everyone told me that they were really good and maybe I was expecting too much. Plus, I kept getting people knocked into me and beer spilled on me. Just wasn't my night.

Anyway, I'm so anal about having to prove myself right, I came home and googled the Manny and Thome stuff. And to further prove my need to show everyone how right I am, I had to post this entry. Though it was mostly therapeutic for me.