Dollars and Sense

Some QBs have both. One of 'em works here

Mirror Company

Who said this recently:

“I've always said I'm about legacy and winning rings more than making money. I'll never do anything that will hurt us from keeping the great players around me. It's about teetering on that line. When you look at the greats, they find that sweet spot where they make a lot of money but they keep great players around them."

Was it:

A. Patrick Mahomes

B. Joe Burrow

C. Lamar Jackson

D. Elon Musk

E. Pillow Guy

It could never have been D or E, it very likely wasn’t C. The correct answer is. . . A. Unless it’s B. Mahomes said that Wednesday. Burrow sort-of said it a week or so ago.

"You got to have good players," Burrow said. "It doesn't matter how good your quarterback is. If you don't have good players around him, you're not going to be a very good team."

The Bengals are fortunate Burrow isn’t Jackson. I could be wrong, but I don’t recall Lamar saying something similar to, “Winning championships is more important to me than making money I’ll never spend.’’

What’s even more interesting is that Burrow owns the same self-awareness that Mahomes does, even as Mahomes already has two rings and two MVPs. It’s usually the superstars who have already done the ultimate winning who realize that gold is just gold and that gold never bought anybody anything that was not for sale. Such as a champion’s legacy.

When we say it’s not about the money, it’s about the money. That’s as true for dock workers and heathen media hacks as it is for glamor-boy, all-everything professional quarterbacks. Where the nuance comes in is why it’s all about the money.

Like it or not, money is the scoreboard. No one who’s not curing diseases needs or deserves to make $45 mil per annum. That’s what Mahomes average annual salary is, asd he’s just the 7th-highest-paid QB in the NFL. That’s obscene money, so obscene that it loses all meaning, at least from a financial standpoint. After awhile, it’s nothing but more zeroes. Unless your life isn’t worth living if it doesn’t include a private island in the South Pacific, you don’t require 45 million simoleons a year to have everything you could ever need.

It’s not the money. It’s what the money represents.

If my work is as good as This Guy’s, I want to make what he’s making. Sure, I’d allow for minor tweaks to my Benjamins pile. Living in The Republic of Cincinnati, I don’t expect to make NYC or West Coast cash. And there are ways to reach a money-pile total that don’t involve straight dollars. I know a guy who in contract talks suggested he’d take some of his take home in the form of company stock options.

That was quite the non-starter.

Was that you, Doc?

Can’t say.

Point is, money is about personal greed, ego, bragging rights and a whole lotta stuff that has nothing to do with net income. The biggest earners who don’t judge their self-worth by their net worth are assets beyond simply worth having. They’re the bedrock of everything an organization hopes to achieve.

Joey B’s gonna get paid. He’s going to spend the rest of his career in Bengals stripes. The only issue is how the money trucks align. From the sound of things, Burrow sees the need to share the wealth with his fellow truckers.

Now, then. . .

Trusted Bulletin

THE REDS HAD THEIR MOST SATISFYING W of the year so far on Wednesday night, in front of a huge crowd of 12,000, some of whom musta got lost on their way to what they believed was a soccer game. Great weather, Looie in town. 12K in attendance. OK. Must not have been a bobblehead night.

When you don’t have much, you better maximize what you do have. If that’s aggressive baserunning and esprit de corps. . .

Esprit de what, Doc?

The Club embodied Rolen’s Law: Need you on third, Brucie. That’s what HOFer Scott Rolen said to young stud Jay Bruce back in the day. It implied that the effort required in going from 1st base to 3rd on a single with fewer than two outs was as much a metaphor as a tactic.

The Reds ran roughshod over the Redbirds, who didn’t seem to have much of an interest in the proceedings. Ten runs, 18 hits, infinite satisfaction. The Reds might be Nowhere hopefully on their way to Somewhere. St. Louis is simply Nowhere. Big bats, little arms, playing musical chairs with their prized offseason acquisition, apparent catcher Willson Contreras.

Nice night for the scrappy local 9. But a question:

Why wasn’t Ben Lively on the Opening Day roster, in the starting rotation?

Did the Reds high-ups really look at Connor Overton and Luis Cessa and say, “we like them better than Ben Lively?’’ I don’t know what went into that evaluation. I’m certain sound logic was involved. Nothing is easier than a 2nd-guess. Howevuh. . .

Cessa: A 9.00 ERA in 26 innings. More walks (12) than Ks (11). Allowed 11 earned runs. . . in one start. DFA’ed earlier this month.

Overton: Unimpressive, then shelved with an elbow strain.

Lively: Four appearances, two starts, 2.65 ERA. Was 4-0 at Louisville before the call-up.

The Reds aren’t unique, obviously. Every team makes mistakes judging ability. Some can afford it more than others.

STICK TO SPORTS. . . Target is removing some of its LGBTQ+ merchandise from its Pride Month collection. Why?

CNN: A “volatile” anti-LGBTQ campaign. The company said threats against employees impacted their sense of safety and well-being, but Target did not specify which products it was removing, the nature of the threats, or where they occurred. Target said it removed from shelves “items that have been at the center of the most significant confrontational behavior.”

The company told the Wall Street Journal that people have confronted workers in stores, knocked down Pride merchandise displays and put threatening posts on social media with video from inside stores.

For a decade, Target has celebrated Pride Month in and around June. The company runs advertisements to appeal to LGBTQ customers and employees, and it sells t-shirts, coffee mugs and merchandise with rainbow flags and other symbols of gay rights.

Target’s action comes on the heels of a conservative backlash against Bud Light, after brewer Anheuser-Busch promoted the beer on social media last month with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney.

A few things:

If you don’t like LGBTQ stuff, or the people who get paid to hype it, don’t buy it. If enough people follow your lead, Target or anyone else interested in making money will cease stocking it. That’s how capitalism works, at least until now. Now, some folks think they have a right to use intimidation to dictate those terms. Who do they think they are?

Live and let live. I don’t identify as LGBTQ. I don’t like sauerkraut, either, but I’m not going to judge you if you do. I’m certainly not going to interfere with your right to eat as much sauerkraut as you want.

What are you afraid of? LGBTQ folks aren’t demanding you acquiesce to them. They’re asking they be acknowledged. There is no widespread sentiment to impose their lifestyle on yours. Why the hate?

What is the difference between what’s going on at Target and what happened at lunch counters and on public buses in the bad old days?

I thought our great country was past all that. Is it?

Tina Turner (onenewspage.com)

TUNE O’ THE DAY. I was never a big Tina Turner fan. I admired her energy and her voice, and I respected the way she pulled herself from an awful situation. She left Ike Turner in 1976 after years of abuse, with 36 cents and a gas credit card in her pocket. She survived for a time on public assistance. Then she resurrected her career and her life. Bravo.

But this isn’t an awards show. It’s where I spin my favorite tunes.

And so here’s one, a relatively obscure yet nevertheless really fine effort from the Who.