Ka-CHING!
They may not have taken home the championship rings, but the Red Sox will at least take home some extra financial compensation for making it to the ALCS.
Major League Baseball announced yesterday the 2008 playoff shares for the eight playoff ballclubs, as well as the four non-wildcard second place divisional finishers. The awards range from a 18,417,357.91 pool for the World Champion Phillies’ playoff share, down to a $511,593.28 pool for each of the Diamondbacks, Mets, Rangers and Twins. That means each of the Mets gets a snazzy $9,185.72 check for not quite holding off the Phillies. Each of the Yankees gets exactly zero dollars for sucking.
Boston players voted on 45 full shares, 15.7 partial shares and 15 cash awards . The value of each full share is $102,230.52, so that’s a nice chunk of change for each of the guys.
The players’ pool is comprised of 60 percent of the gate receipts from the first three games of the Division Series and 60 percent of the gate receipts from the first four games of the League Championship series and the World Series. No word on whether any kind of tax on annoying cowbells was included.
Not bad for a day’s…. uh, season’s… work
Although I bet that extra $100K means a lot more to the guys like Lester, Lowrie, Masterson, and Ellsbury who are still making what amounts to peanuts compared to Tek, Beckett, Lowell, and Papi (and now Pedey).