Chris Baker will appear on the Pro Football Central Radio Show (http://www.ProFootballCentral.com/) tonight at 7 p.m. Wonder what he'll be talking about.
I have said it before, I'm taking a verbal vacation on this story, barring news actually breaking around it of course, until training camp.
UPDATE: The interview can be found here.
Nothing new from what he said during last week's minicamp, other than Baker saying he received a $3,000 fine for missing last Friday's practiced with his tweaked back. That is new, though disputed as the fine wasn't for missing practice, it was for missing a treatment session. But whether or not he missed a treatment session is disputed as well. And on it goes...
Comments (8)
Mr. Boland,
Why is it that we fans tend to hold on to journalistic tags til our knuckles turn white? Who is to say that Dustin Keller will NEVER learn to block? Everything he has said on the subject (and his former Collegiate HC as well) indicates that this is a challenge Dustin is more than UP for.
There's no way to work on blocking during pad-less OTAs, so the question will be moot till late July.
But Bubba Franks can block, and Bubba Franks can certainly run good routes. Also, I wonder what Bubba Franks looks like in a 40 sprint with Chris Baker? Surely you had a chance to see them sprint against one another in Mangini's gassers (I believe they were reported on in one media coverage of the OTAs, so they were visible to the media).
In short, what Chris Baker brings to the party should be compared to what Pociask, Keller, and Franks bring to the party to determine the viability of C. Baker's campaign with the FO on this contract revision.
No matter how much you like C.Baker -- if other guys can catch, run routes, block, and just plain outrun this big 'cruiser', perhaps there are enough reps to develop these alternative skill sets in case Mr. C.Baker takes himself out of contention here.
Apart from affection, (internal to the team and fan-wise as well), what do we gain or lose as a team should be on everybody's mind when it comes down to money.
Amen, KeepChad&Kellen!
I believe Baker would go into camp as the #1 tight end on the depth chart if he were to report, but sometime over the course of this season, perhaps even before, he will likely be phased out by Keller as his total game improves.
41 Catches (career high), 3 touchdowns??? And you want a new deal? Come on...Baker has been a "good soldier", but that isn't why players get new deals. A contract is generally renegotiated when a player outperforms it, which in my opinion Baker has not done. In fact, that type of production is not the most difficult in the world to replace.
Rather than causing such a stir, I think Baker's cause would have been better served if he were to show up and play this year, and put up even better numbers in what should be an improved offense.
Usually I tend to side with the players on contract issues, but I don't think management should budge on this one or they will have 3 or 4 players every year hire Neil Schwartz and pull the exact same thing.
Erik, and all ladies & gentlemen:
Henceforth, please let us dispense with ALL stories about contracts. Period.
For example, what a Sean Penn contract with Paramount is, or is not, is of absolutely NO interest to me and, I'd say, most movie fans. The only criterion is whether a movie entertains me for a couple of hours, or doesn't. My view of all parties involved is wrapped tightly around that concept. If they succeed, they're delightful people who made me happy for a bit; if the movie sucked, they're incompetents who stole my time and my money. All tiffs between stars and studios fall on deaf (and much poorer) ears.
Remember, that any athlete who signs a contract for $250,000 or greater (nearly 100% of all athletes today?) automatically enters the group you see bandied about on the news pages of this and every newspaper: the U.S.'s richest 2%. Remember them? The ones who get all of Bush's tax cuts? The ones who don't really need it? Yes, them.
Chris Baker is one of them.
Chris Baker is an entertaining football player. I've been happy to watch him on my beloved Same Old Jets. But -- just as in the movies -- if Chris makes a catch in the endzone in a crucial spot, or throws a key block that lets Thomas Jones score, and makes me happy for a brief while, he's a great and thoroughly entertaining player. If he drops that pass in the endzone, or slips on a block that gets any of our thousands of QBs crushed, he's a stiff who should be cut. End of story.
That's just how it is.
With that said, the state of Chris' financial portfolio interests me not in the least. He currently wants a raise from the $1.8 million salary he signed for this year. All power to him. I assume the front office and Mr. Baker will work something out, or they won't. I don't care. It's none of my affair.
But please note as well, those of you who, say, make a tight but OK income in the $50,000/yr. range. It will take you 36 YEARS of your working life to amass what Chris Baker is complaining about as being too paltry for this year alone. If you're lucky enough to be in the $70,000/yr. area (a "good job" in most locales), it'll still take you 25.71 YEARS to equal the 2008-only gross pay that we see Chis sneezing at.
We glorify athletes who please us, and vilify those who anger us. But they still get paid. Even those who only play a year or two, should be set for life -- unless they're financially illiterate.
Just think of A-Rod's $25 million salary for 2008: this year, his TAX CUT ALONE, over what he paid the IRS in 2001, is $1,025,468. How does that stack up against your $300 or so tax cut check from a couple of years ago?
As I said, I applaud any employee who is courageous enough to ask for a raise in a troubled economy. I just don't need or want to know exactly how he or she made out. Whether it's a waiter, a reporter or an athlete.
So, please tell Chris and all his teammates: "PLAY BALL! Then, please, simply shut up."
Erik, thanks for an entertaining blog!
Damn it! I'm in the 98% of the poor slobs. Oh well, i least i can afford to complain to Erik. Your not gonna renegotiate are you Boland?
gothamnotes, while in many ways I agree with your well-phrased sentiments, I have to follow the news and, unfortunately, these contract squabbles qualify. I pledge not to overdo it.
Mr. Green T, it's funny you mention renegotiating my contract because it just so happens my sports editor made certain promises a few months back...
Erik, did you get those promises in writing? By the way, are the the third highest paid sportswriter while having the most readers at Newsday? Just wondering...
I heard Baker got fined $3,000 for missing an injury treatment. Does this seem petty on the part of the Jets to you? Shouldn't they have done something about the Baker situation by now or does this necessarily have to drag into August?
Big A, nothing in writing, but I know I heard what I heard!
Yes, on the Baker thing. I linked to the interview above and have a little bit on the $3,000. I can't imagine this dragging into August. As Baker said last night during the interview, things staying the way they are now will be a "lose-lose."
Hi Erik,
I thoroughly understand your point. But, I still hear a "but" in here somewhere...
"What news is," or isn't, still stands as one of the more malleable critters in all of human discourse.
A point wrestled with -- or which should be wrestled with -- by everyone on Newsday's political beat. Or general news beat. Contracts rank right alongside the insipid John Edwards' haircut drivel coming from the news desk.
For example, the sale of Newsday obviously is a news story. But one with limits. It's good for a cycle or two, because I wonder how it will effect what I use the paper for, but then the story recedes. This is due to the fact that it -- along with Murdoch's purchase of the Dow Jones properties -- only resonates with the end user insofar as if affects the experience of using that property. If the Dolans don't change much, no reader of Newsday will care a whit, nor even know, who owns the pencil sharpener. If they get "creative," and handle you the way they "improved" the Knicks, well, then the LIE will look empty compared to the crush on the Information SuperHighway as readers all flock to some other information source. A good example is what happened when Murdoch first tarted up the Post in the '70s. He had to use half his fortune just to keep that fishwrap afloat.
Now while your boss on the editorial desk may be fascinated with the minutiae of clauses in Tannenbaum's contracts, all I, and many others, want to see and hear about has to do with arms and legs in motion, hopefully towards an endzone. It's about the game. Period.
How the pieces of paper get moved around is about "business." Many of us read the sports pages to get away from business. Yes, I'm sad to say, it is escapist fare -- hence, the popularity of the beach photos.
Being dragged against our collective will and forced to deal with nasty business matters sounds way too much like what we're getting away from when we turn to the sports pages. Except with bigger numbers.
As most sports fans would attest, the loyalty goes to the uniform -- despite how craven or angelic the person wearing it at any moment might be. I'm a Jets fan, lord help me. While it might have seemed doggedly important years ago to help non-fans pronounce Taliaferro correctly, what Chris Baker makes sends me back to work. If he plays, he's my guy. If someone else is playing, HE'S my guy. That's how sports have always been; that's how it will always be.
I understand the burdens of your job, Erik, it's a job like any other; but you may want to pass on to the editorial staff that not all Newsday readers give a crap about what they give a crap about.