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When I read you last post I immediately looked up the meaning of the Alphonse and Gaston comment, and surprised to see that they are actually characters from a comic strip in an old Randolph Hearst newspaper rather than baeball players!

The salaries in baeball are beyond belief. Ohtani's $700 million 10 year deal being a case in point, and while watching analysis of that 5th inning it was mentioned that Juan Soto (who I'd never heard of) is now a free agent and could sign for even more!

As I said earlier, as a rule I don't watch baseball so it's no surprise that I misunderstood the Cole/Rozzo play. After listening to analysis from experts and pundits, it seems that the pitcher Gerrit Cole was at fault, but let's not be too hard on him - his contract is a mere $324 million 🤷‍♂️

As I recall, Ohtani's contract is back-end loaded to a ridiculous extent, so its present value is far less than $700MM (almost all the $ will be paid out more than 10 years from now). He was widely criticized for signing it.
See https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/shohei-ohtani-contract-explaining-680-million-deferral-in-dodgers-deal-with-unique-andrew-friedman-clause/

"In an effort to enable the Dodgers to continue spending around stars Ohtani, Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman, Ohtani agreed to defer all but $2 million of his annual salary — $68 million of his $70 million per year — until after the completion of the contract. The deferred money is to be paid out without interest from 2034 to 2043."

Still an awful lot of money, though. :-;

As I mentioned, "Alphonse-Gaston" is an old-timer thing. Pre-television (and needless to say Internet), US sportswriting enjoyed a "Golden Age" of sorts, because newspaper was the major medium. Old columns were floridly written and contained many colo(ur)ful allusions [see for instance the famous "Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" column about college football - https://archives.nd.edu/research/texts/rice.htm]. These days, sportswriting is practically a dead profession.

Ohtani can live like a king off endorsement $$ alone. Besides, with this contract there is less for his interpreter to steal.

Estimated 100m annually from endorsements as per The Athletic. Who needs a salary?

Touché on the interpreter. That was some funny stuff.

Actually, before we close this out, I must tell you about the time, circa '98, that I sent in a conundrum to the TV show 'MLB on Five', hosted by Jonny Gould and former player Todd Macklin.

It was covering a World Series and, being in the UK, devoted a lot of time to answering questions and explaining things like terminology and tactics.

Anyway, I told my Canadian partner this poser and she suggested I email it into the show, which I did. It read as follows:-

"A man leaves home running, he turns left, left, and left again before arriving home - who is the masked man"?

No doubt this is well known now but it wasn't in 1998 and, as such, Jonny Gould read it out, with a name check, asking viewers to send in their answers.

I was in the kitchen doing something when suddenly I heard my girlfriend scream, "Bren, quick... you're on telly"!

Wow! It really does not take a lot to please me 😂