Sports Illustrated: Mad Max's $144 Million Bet

So in a recent Sports Illustrated from the end of April, the cover story was about Detroit Tiger's star pitcher Max Scherzer. In recent years, he has turned into one of the best pitchers in the game, and also won the Cy Young last year as the best pitcher in the American League. In this past offseason, he turned down a six year, $144 million dollar extension from the Tigers, as he thought he could make more than that after another stellar season. Isn't it just crazy to think that athletes in professional sports make so much money? He turned down $24 million a year because he thought he could get even more money when he becomes a free agent. Imagine yourself being offered the chance to make $24 million- can you even process the thought of turning that offer down? It just shows how athletes make way too much money.

What if Scherzer gets hurt? What if he ends up having a bad season? Did he just make one of the worst decisions of his life? We will just have to wait until this offseason. In my opinion, I think Scherzer should've agreed to the contract extension- not just because I am a Tigers fan though, because there are many other reasons. One quote from the article, written by Albert Chen, that proves this idea is, "How could a pitcher fast approaching 30 who until last year had never reached 200 innings, never had a full-season ERA below 3.50 and never even made an All-Star team walk away from $144 million for a bigger pay-day that wasn't guaranteed?" The fact that he is almost 30 is very important because a team isn't likely to give him more than 6 years, like the Tigers were offering. I also think he should've agreed to the extension because he could suffer a serious injury and teams could just let go their interests in him. With so many pitchers having to undergo Tommy John surgery, you never know what could happen.

Opinion on Divergent

Happy Star Wars Day! May the 4th be with you!

So far, I think Divergent is a pretty decent book. I don't think it's as good as The Hunger Games or Harry Potter, but it is definitely a good book. There have been many surprises so far in the book, which is part of the reason it's been a good book. One of the surprises in the book is that Beatrice left the Abnegation faction, and chose to be a part of the Dauntless faction. Her brother, Caleb, also left Abnegation and joined Erudite. Another surprising event is that Beatrice decided to change her name and just go by Tris during the Initiation process. We also learned that Tris's mother actually grew up in the Dauntless faction.

The book is also very well written by the author, Veronica Roth. She describes the scenes, setting, and characters very well and gives us a good idea of the events happening in the book. Roth's writing makes the book have a very fast moving pace. Considering I'm not a big reader, I'm surprised that I actually like this book. Usually I don't like main characters that are girls because I can't connect to them as well, but this book is still pretty good. I have heard that the movie is okay from my family, do you guys have any input on the movie? Rate 1-10?

Donald Sterling

So I have decided to take a break from Divergent, and blog about a recent topic from the sports world. So I'm sure most of you guys have heard of Donald Sterling, the now infamous owner of the Los Angeles Clippers. About a week ago, a video leaked that had himself saying racist comments to his girlfriend. It immediately went viral, and people were calling for his punishment even before additional evidence was released. Overall, this case ended pretty quickly, with the new NBA commissioner Adam Silver dropping the hammer after only a couple days. He banned the LA Clippers owner from the NBA for life, and also fined him $2.5 million dollars. He also forced a sell of the team, but it must be approved by 3/4 of the rest of the owners.

In my opinion, I think this was a great move by Silver. In only his 3rd month as commissioner, he immediately made it know that racism will not be tolerated. He acted immediately after the research was given, and people across America have applauded him for his actions. There is no room for Donald Sterling in the NBA, and it is good that he will be gone for good. However, I think the fine is not even close to enough. When he sells the team, the price could be close to 1 billion dollars because of the location of the team in Los Angeles. If you do the math, that would be less than one percent of his earnings! It would only be .25% of the billion he could make.

Even with the minor fine, it was still a great move by the NBA. They got rid of this man from the NBA, and it also sends a message that racism will not be tolerated in the NBA, or in society in general.

More on the banning of Donald Sterling