So I
posted back here that I wanted anyone with a blog to let me know about it so I could add it to my blogroll. I really do like
stealing from reading other people's card stuff. I only got one new blog, but boy am I glad I did. Reader Russ is the proprietor of
The House of Cardboard. Russ hasn't updated in a while and right now I sympathize with him. Between holidays and work and bills and laundry piling up and the toilet seat breaking (just broke! I got a fat butt, but come on already) and the garbage man coming at seemingly random intervals and all kind of other nonsense I'm surprised I've posted at all. Well, I looked though his archives and found this post on
some pack breaks from Target. This comment on Tom Glavine is what really got me:
Tom and I have a love/hate relationship with each other. I have always been a Braves fan and after the 2002 season, he basically spit in my face, called my momma names and ran over my dog. Now you can say Glavine wanted more money or that John Schuerholz just screwed the whole thing up, but I'm sticking with the theory that it was all Glavine's fault.
YES!!!!!!!! Finally I found someone who agrees with me on Tommy Turncoat! There's at least one other person who won't look at me funny or flat out call me "not a true Braves fan" just because I don't like Tom Glavine. I understand all the reasons why I should
like him and I should be glad
he's back. But I don't. I'm not going to like him ever again. Am I glad he'll be pitching for the Braves in 2008? Sure. I wish he had pitched for them in 2007, to be honest (and so do the Mets). He'll be a decent back of the rotation option who will win 10 games or so assuming the arm doesn't fall off. He's only getting 8 million a year which isn't that bad assuming he can eat up 150-180 good innings. Giving up our 1st round draft pick to the Mets while we get nothing for Andruw galls me, but that's a front office problem. Do I hope he'll pitch well and maybe even stick around the organization awhile? Sure, although I don't want him anywhere near out postseason roster. I'm not going to flat out boo him anymore, but he'll have to do something spectacular for me to cheer for him.
I've spouted off on why the whole 2002 thing pissed me off so badly before and I'm not rehashing it here. Every time I do so I seemingly get flack about how I don't know the full details of Tom's contract or the negotiation between him and Schuerholz and that's true, I don't. I do know something about a simple economic concept called an
Opportunity Cost. Opportunity cost means that if someone uses an economic resource in one way, the cost is that it can't be used in another way. For example, if you sell a piece of land, you can't build a house to live in on it. If you eat the box of cookies you got from Grandma, you can't bring them to the New Year's party to share. (burp) If you pay your mortgage, you won't be able to buy that three-box case of Sport Kings. And so on.
I don't think anyone disputes that Tom got a better monetary offer from the Mets, although the amount is in dispute. Tom got more money to go to the Mets, but what was the cost? First he didn't have Andruw Jones snagging fly balls behind him in center field and instead relied on Jeff Duncan, Timo Perez and Tsuyoshi Shinjo to catch his fly balls. His ERA jumped a full run and a half that first season, so take that how you will. Who knows who would win the division if he stayed with the Braves, but other than 2006 he sure didn't have any postseason opportunities. What about his family? Tom has been really weepy about
how he hated to leave his family behind when he signed with the Mets. Why wasn't that taken into account when he decided he simply could not work with Schuerholz? Again, an opportunity cost that doesn't show up in the Accountant's books, but is much more real than any line in a ledger. How about advertising opportunities? I seem to remember him having a few local endorsement deals here in the ATL, did he make as much in New York? If he stayed here, he would be first in line to take up Hank Aaron's mantle as Mr. Brave. How many future opportunities would that have given to Tom? Now he's a great player who will still get sponsor deals in Atlanta, but they're sure not naming the street in front of the stadium after him. Tom got more money, but also gave up a lot to get that extra cash. I'll root for him at a game (as long as he doesn't have one of his patented first inning meltdowns), I'll still collect his cards and I'm glad that he'll (likely) end his career with the Braves and go into the Hall with an A on his cap. But after the crap he pulled in 2002, I simply can never be a devoted fan ever again, and there are others who agree with me. One more cost of putting on that Mets uniform.
