Pay To (Not) Play?

PHOTO: Mookie Betts has a 2020 base salary of $27 million and is still being paid while not working.

Stories abound about farmers getting paid by the governments to NOT grow crops—for a variety of reasons. Subsidies abound. Got ethanol?
Still, the notion of receiving public money for doing nothing rankles many.
Trillions of dollars will be distributed in response to the COVID pandemic. There’s no way it all can be effectively disbursed. Some will receive money who don’t need it. Others in desperate need will miss out. Efficiency is a casualty of emergency.
All this is important because we should be very concerned about how much money is suddenly printed and distributed—efficiently or not. The national debt can only grow so much before terrible consequences accrue. And putting trillions of new dollars into the economy can create terrible inflation down the road, with all its associated economic pathologies.
Which brings us to our NFL, NHL, NBA, and MLB heroes—none of whom are struggling financially, and most of whom (at this writing) are still being paid. That’s even more intriguing than ethanol support. At least Iowa farmers still have to grow corn to get those subsidies.
Los Angeles Dodger (nee Red Sox) outfielder Mookie Betts has a 2020 base salary of $27 million and is still being paid while not working. For that matter, so are minor leaguers who make far less. It is what it is. Pro sports leagues do have collective bargaining agreements with clauses that address games being cancelled, but those clauses have yet to be invoked.
And pro sports money is not public money, per se.
Which brings us to high school teachers and sports coaches, who are paid with public money and who are still being paid, despite school shutdowns. This being a sports column, we’ll focus briefly on high school spring sport coaches still being paid despite the cancellation of their seasons.
Some coaches are still getting money for not coaching. Some aren’t. It depends on the community. Naturally, it’s an emotional issue. It’s one thing for MLB to sanction continued salary payments to Mookie Betts. It’s quite another thing for public employees to be paid public money for not working.
That’s a “local control” issue. If a town’s elected officials and school board members want to continue to pay everyone, that’s their business. Town folk can always elect different people. But consider the private sector employees who have been laid off or let go. They pay taxes—directly or indirectly—that provide salaries for public employees. So should private sector people without jobs pay for salaries of public sector employees who are not working?
Yes, I’m old fashioned, but I still want to believe that the government is supposed to serve the people, as opposed to people serving the government.
Oh how we miss the good old days—of 2019 …
Got ethanol?

Sports Quiz
What baseball Hall-of-Famer insisted on receiving a pay cut after a bad year and then came back to bat .316 in his final season?

Born Today
That is to say sports standouts born on May 21 include Notre Dame football coach Ara Parseghian (1923) and legendary running back Ricky Williams (1977).

Sports Quote
“If I got paid, it was no more than five dollars a column, and I still think I was overpaid.” – the late pundit Dick Schaap on his early days as a sportswriter.

Sports Quiz Answer
After batting only .254 in 1959, Ted Williams felt he hadn’t earned his money and insisted that the Red Sox cut his pay from $125,000 to $90,000 for the 1960 season.

Mike Moffett was a Professor of Sports Management for Plymouth State University and NHTI-Concord. He co-authored the critically-acclaimed and award-winning “FAHIM SPEAKS: A Warrior-Actor’s Odyssey from Afghanistan to Hollywood and Back” which is available through Amazon.com. His e-mail address is mimoffett@comcast.net.