Who Wants To Be a Deadbeat Professional Athlete and Get Paid Million$ For It?

Remember how outraged everyone was when Alex Rodriguez signed the Mt. Everest of contracts with the Texas Rangers for $256 million? And how the Yankees tore it up in exchange for a new $275 million monstrosity? And how angry we all get when millionaire athletes fight with billionaire owners and shut down their sports in spite of their obscene wealth? And how much we want to see Scott Boras' head burst into flames in the middle of his latest press conference announcing another player's 9-figure deal that he doesn't really deserve? Well, believe it or don't, there's actually something worse. It's one thing when the superstars get the big bucks. As outrageous as the market is, it's still the same as in any business: The best gets the highest salaries. But when a bad player gets paid to suck, that's a whole new ballgame, brother.

How does a 7-foot tall living carcass like Kwame Brown get handed $8 million for averaging 7.5 points and 5.7 rebounds over seven years after he was inexplicably drafted first overall out of high school by Washington in 2001? It's pretty clear by now that Brown isn't Moses Malone or Kevin Garnett and he never will be. The sad fact is, everyone except the Wizards pretty much knew that Brown wouldn't amount to much in the first place.

Or how about that 7'1", 275 lb. vertical speed-bump Jerome James (the only player more disappointing than Brown), getting $30 million packed into his wallet by Isiah Thomas to do literally nothing? Of the many screwball decisions Thomas made, this one was by far the worst, and considering his track record, that's really going some.

Here's a good one: In 2006 pitcher Jeff Weaver goes a combined 8-14 with a 5.76 ERA with the Dodgers and Cardinals, and just because he had a couple of good games in the postseason despite his career 86-101 record at that point, the Mariners back up the truck and dump a one-year $8,325,000 windfall on his mullet. The result was an even worse season by Weaver. Seattle's subsequent signing of Carlos Silva showed they didn't learn.

Carl Pavano is a joke the Yankees played on themselves. We all know about that catastrophe.

You can't blame the bank robber when the bank leaves the front doors and the vault wide open with no employees around and a big neon sign blinking, "COME AND GET IT!!" Who wouldn't take advantage of desperate and/or unqualified execs who have about as much knowledge in talent evaluation as the rest of us do in small nuclear particles?

So the next time a major free agent hits the jackpot, remember that the deals the lousy players get are far more damaging because those are the ones that strangle a team's ability to sign the superstars and there are a lot more of those contracts on the books. That's where the outrage should be directed.