In these tough economic times, when it feels like your money isn’t going all that far, just remember that there are plenty of people that are worse off than you. USA today had a study on athletes, and it found that 78% of retired NFL players are bankrupt within 2 years, and 60% retired NBA players are broke within 5 years. So congratulations to all the rookies out there! They’re usually thrown into the glamorous filled lifestyle of the rich and famous, but that life is usually abruptly ended, and they end up being just an anecdote in one of my pointless posts! Far too many times we see athletes blow off hundreds of millions of dollars, but there should be no reason to be surprised. They have to realize they just can’t blow through cash like Joey Chestnut powers down hot dogs! Here is a list of things that some players didn’t realize weren’t within their means.
Taking the Lil Wayne approach. This guy already has two kids and is about to have two more with two different ladies on very close due dates.
Travis and six of his eleven kids
I’m not saying don’t have kids, but he could easily go broke down the line just like Travis Henry who has 11 kids with 10 different women. In March of this year he was pulled over and arrested for failing to pay $16,600 in child support. He is currently in jail for trafficking cocaine. Shawn Kemp ran into similar problems having at least 7 kids with 6 different women.
Buy cars, actually buy many many cars! Jack “the Ripper” Clark owned 18 cars at the time he filed for bankruptcy, and 17 were not paid for in full including a 1990 Ferrari that he owed $300K on. In 1992 he owed $11,459,305, and had only $4,781,780 in assets. He was still in the second year of a three year $8.7 million contract from the Red Sox while filing for bankruptcy.
Buy a private jet. Burn money like it’s going out of style! Scottie Pippen borrowed $4.375 million to get himself a personal jet. Did you know that it costs about $50K to fix a windshield on one of those!?! I’m sure that insurance, fuel, and a personal pilor are good investments to ride in style to the next stop on the road trip. Apparently, he still owes the airplane company $5 million. 
You could go by sea if you don’t like flying. Latrell Sprewell tried to hide his 70 foot yacht in storage, until the bank foreclosed on his house and yacht. He famously turned down a 3 year $30 million contract stating “I’ve got a family to feed”.
Ballin out of control. Most players fall into this trap. They don’t drive their own cars. They don’t write their own checks. They don’t raise their own kids. They just play their sport and let others pick off their carcass like vultures. Just look at how Vick turned out, as his friends ran his life outside football helping lead to his dog fighting ring. For some reason most athletes set up a large support system behind them, and because they are the only ones supporting it they go broke! LaTroy Hawkins offers his advice to teammates “When I was a young buck, I was trying to spend all my money. Now I try to preach to young guys in the clubhouse who are like that. I’ve got all this stuff from 10 years ago — jewelry, rims — that I think, Why the f— did I even buy this?”
Screw up, deny everything, and fight it with all the lawyers and cash you have. Rodger Clemens sold his Bentley last year to none other than Bret Michaels. The sale of the car was reportedly to pay for legal fees. 
Kareem signed over his power of attorney, and then let an agent named Tom Collins have his power of attorney. It cost Kareem about $9 million before he figured it out. Mark Jackson was taken by one of his business managers who forged about $2.6 million worth of his checks to get his gambling fix. Barry Bonds seems like he’s well on his way to this dilemma.
So in the end, athletes are just like many of our own friends and people we know. Maybe our friends aren’t going bankrupt or quite as extravagant as these athletes, but we all know people living out of their means. A recent study suggests that if you make $35K a year you will never retire. I myself think I could contain my own spending if I hit the lotto, but then again I am a sucker for a friend in need and I can think of a lot of them that would probably hit me up.
The prized prospect in the Matt Holliday deal made his Raley Field debut tonight in his new hometown of Sacramento. The River Cats wasted no time pencilling him into the cleanup spot. He also got the start at third base, where many question whether he will stick, or eventually make the move to first base or designated hitter. While he didn’t do anything extraordinary in the field, he didn’t make any mistakes either. The Salt Lake Bees wasted little time testing his glove, as leadoff hitter Brad Coon hit a sharp grounder to the left of Wallace. Wallace made a diving effort to no avail. It wasn’t a play he should’ve made, but he didn’t exactly make a gold glove attempt. The other balls hit to him were routine, and he fielded them cleanly and threw perfect strikes to first. So far, so good.
I almost dropped them to #2 after seeing the new look Cardinals win their second in a row against them, but you can’t argue with the best record in the league!
The Angels seem to be catching fire winning 3 out of 4 from the Twins, and winning 12 of their last 15. They need to get someone so they don’t have to rely on Santana, because he looks like a black hole in the rotation.
Maybe not to the extent they were last year, but if they can figure out a way to get Kazmir and Price functioning properly they should make a push at the wild card spot.
Seattle seems to be fading behind the Rangers and Angels, but look much improved over the past few teams they put out there.
If they don’t make a move at the trade deadline, Prince and company may have to slug their way into the playoffs. I don’t like the odds of that happening.
They haven’t shown signs of anything good or consistent. The emergence of Brandon Phillips bat has helped fantasy teams out though. They seem to be stuck in the same situation year after year, and yup, it’s a bad one.
Erin Andrews is a sex symbol in the world of sports. She knows that, we all do. If being hot is part of that, good for her and good for her career. Day after day she plays her position just like the players of the games she announces for. She has her uniform, and knows the drills. She appears to enjoy what she does and is good at it too. My point here is that what Erin Andrews did in the privacy of her own hotel room is not that different from what thousands of people do every day. We all come home after a long day of work, a fancy party, a long work out, and want nothing more than to shed our “uniform”. It how we step out of the role and character that we play every day. Sports player or not, male or female, being nude, or partially nude for that matter, is how we feel the most comfortable, relaxed, and free. Maybe Erin Andrews knows something more than the rest of us who have never tried it before…
I don’t understand the fascination with ruining people’s careers, challenging their self-esteem, and threatening their safety. This is about disrespect and lack of boundaries on the part of the peeping tom(s). It makes me sad and upset that what is deemed as normal or abnormal comes from what we “catch” other people doing. Frankly, spying and filming anyone without their knowledge is voyeurism, which is listed in the Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders under paraphilia. That is abnormal.
The 2009 Baseball America Prospect Handbook says, “Brett Wallace, think batting champ with the ability to be a big bopper. “ This is one of many interesting players that the A’s have acquired as the rebuilding is starting to take some shape.
Tonight he is facing the Yankees with a 21 inning scoreless streak going into the game. The guy I was excited about for awhile, Carlos Gonzalez, was traded away in the Holliday trade, and he hasn’t impressed so far hitting only .229 in 97 at bats for Colorado this season. Street is having a pretty good year for Colorado, but even when he was on the A’s last year he wasn’t even the closer as Brad Ziegler took the spot from him. Beane has never seemed to highly value the closer’s role, so losing Street and C-Gon, hasn’t hurt them.
help offensively in the lineup. The fact is, he simply wasn’t hitting. It’s not like he was constantly hitting balls that died on the warning track. Or that he was racking up hits but getting left on base when others failed to come through. You can’t even attribute his struggles to seeing few good pitches, because pitchers weren’t pitching around him. He had plenty of opportunities with runners on and saw plenty of pitches to hit. He just wasn’t hitting them. He filled in nicely for Mark Ellis providing the team’s bulk of infield pop-ups. At the same time, he beat out Bobby Crosby for the title of best at hitting into inning-ending double plays. Don’t let the past week or two fool you. The A’s could’ve traded him for the ol’ proverbial bag of balls and come out winners.
However, Oakland didn’t receive a bag of balls in this deal, but rather two top ten prospects from the Cardinals’ system. Brett Wallace is a supposed can’t miss big leaguer, and is probably less than a year away. Despite being a fat gut, scouts say he is in fact athletic, and could stick at third base for years to come. Third base, as A’s fans know too well, is a huge hole for the team. On top of that, they managed to snag St. Louis’ 2nd best pitching prospect, and 6th best prospect overall. It’s unlikely he’ll be the next Dan Haren, but he is projected to be a future #3 starter. The bottom line is the three players the A’s got are almost guaranteed to be better than the two compensation picks they would’ve received at the end of the season. The added bonus is that Holliday is out of lineup two months sooner!
I’m just hoping we get something to the tune of a few major league ready minor league players, instead of two compensation draft picks when he leaves this off-season. San Francisco, Atlanta, Chicago, and even Boston could use some power at the moment, and are all within three games of the wild card spot at the moment. Holliday hasn’t lit the world on fire since coming to Oakland, but is showing teams he’s still a good player as it gets closer to the deadline with 3 HR’s, 13 Runs, 14 RBI, and a .311 BA over the last month.
Victor Martinez. He’s having a solid comeback season with 14 HR’s, 59 RBI’s and a .286 BA. Vic is a player that would be a good fit for Red Sox or the Mets with Delgado and Lowell constantly battling injuries. He would also be a solid fit behind the plate in Boston with the deteriorating Varitek.
He can play multiple positions, and can come through with clutch hits (Many fond memories of him in an A’s uniform). He’s a glue guy that every contender needs, and if a team deals for him they won’t be disappointed with what he brings to the table.
Tim Lincecum appears to be getting more and more unhittable with each start. Matt Cain has always showed potential, but lacked run support. This year, though, he’s finally turned the corner, and the offense has seemingly turned it with him – for his starts at least. Problem is, after that you’re looking at Randy Johnson, Barry Zito, and Jonathan Sanchez. Johnson may only get worse as the year goes on. He’s currently sideline with a strained left shoulder, which doesn’t bode well for a pitcher in his 40s. He’s already slated to be out longer than originally anticipated, so we won’t see the Big Unit until next month at the earliest. Despite throwing the first no-hitter in 30+ years for the Giants, SF fans will be the first to say they don’t exactly go in expecting a W when Sanchez is on the mound. He’s had his moments, and he looked great when he put those moments together for 9 full innings 10 days ago. Tonight, he went 6 innings giving up 3 earned runs. That is even considered a great game for him. Then there’s Barry Zito. I don’t want to kick a guy while he’s down, so I’m going to refrain from talking about Zito for the rest of his career presumably.
On the offensive side, Pablo Sandoval is having a well-documented breakout year, but when you look down the rest of the order, it looks very Athletic-like, numbers-wise. It’s not like there’s really any veteran players who are due to break out any time soon either. The offense is, and most likely, will be anemic for the remainder of the year. Therefore, it seems logical that they need to trade for a bat. They have two young pitchers who could net the offensive help they need, but the front office seems pretty locked in on Madison Bumgarner and Tim Alderson, so they don’t appear to be going anywhere.
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