thanks for the reply - I appologize if I misunderstood your commentquote:I didn't understand the parroting the company line part?
the corp comparison was to illustrate that training is done thru-out the business world, not that anyone would choose another career over baseball.
and MiLB pay is what it is .. if it was too unfair, they'd have difficulty filling rosters
I think I've figured the color thingy out now
"minor leaguers do not make the Major League clubs any money! In fact, they cost the Major League clubs a lot of money just giving these players an opportunity to develop"
perhaps that just sounds like MLB's "company line" regarding their generosity ...
in fact it's just not true at all.
player/employee development is a necessary element to MLB, but the profit payback for development costs is just deferred to a later time, as it is in any other businesses.
if developments costs were never recouped, MLB would have been out of business long ago or run by the government. it's misleading to cite an example of a particular player/bonus and reach any conclusion ... but it's pretty easy to see in a historic perspective
it doesn't matter how much they spend if it's "recouped plus" later -
Forbes magazine estimates values of MLB teams rose about 30% from 2004 to 2006 w/revenue increases far outpacing player salaries
so pick your favorite team .. compare it's value of 10 yrs ago to todays value.
a portion of that increase in value is directly attributable to the "product on the field"
aka: player development.
btw, neither Goodyear nor IBM has had "state of the art" corporate headquarters & development centers built thru-out the US by us taxpayers