Alex Rodriguez’ Unique Job Offer

Three years ago, this publication marveled at the quarter-billion dollar contract signed by baseball’s Alex Rodriguez. At that time, the Rangers human resources department told Workforce Management that the contract was “like buying a company … or a country.”

The Yankees are now going to be employing Rodriguez, and his new contract is full of clauses rarely seen among non-executive employees. Rodriguez will be making $5 million less than he currently earns as a Texas Ranger. To compensate, he’ll receive his own hotel suite on road trips, according to ESPN. ESPN also reports that he’ll get a guarantee that “the deferred money won’t be wiped out by a work stoppage.” This “deferred money” refers to Rodriguez’s complicated contract, which calls for some of his salary to be deferred, to be paid starting in 2011. In the end, Rodriguez will still be receiving money in 2025–when he’s 49.

Rodriguez won’t have to worry about selling his Texas home. His contract includes a clause that requires the Rangers, Rodriguez’s current employer, to buy it from him.

Major league baseball commissioner Bud Selig says, “I am very concerned about the large amount of cash consideration involved in the transaction, and the length of time over which the cash is being paid. I want to make it abundantly clear to all clubs that I will not allow cash transfers of this magnitude to become the norm.”