Thank You, A-Rod.

No this is not Derek Jeter masquerading as the V-Spot. Alex Rodriguez did all of baseball a favor by taking Tom Hicks' ridiculous 10 year, $252 million contract to play shortstop for the Texas Rangers. Mark my words, when the history of baseball is written, this contract will be considered as epoch changing as the actions of Curt Flood and Marvin Miller.

As baseball slowly recovers from the ticket shock of one quarter of a billion dollars to play baseball, it must finally resolve itself to say that something really is wrong with a policy that permits Hicks to give two million less to his shortstop than he paid for the entire team.

Quite frankly, this contract is so stupendous that the traditional arguments brought against excessive spending will no longer offer solace to the small market teams. For the past few years, one only needed to look at the antics of Peter Angelos and the Baltimore Orioles and realize that money does not buy success. And even as the payroll of the vaunted New York Yankees ratcheted ever skyward, at least Yankee fans could point to the core of their team as homegrown--Andy Pettite, Mariano Rivera, Bernie Williams and, of course, Jeter.

But this contract is a slap in the face to the entire economic system of the game. The Seattle Mariners are by no means a poor team. They have a brand new, well-attended facility in Safeco Field, and they offered Rodriguez somewhere around $150 million to stay put. The fact is that GM Pat Gillick has done everything right over the past couple of years to bring his club to the precipice of contention.

Running under the premise that pitching wins championships, he brought in stud young arms when he was forced to trade Randy Johnson. He has systematically improved his bullpen, most recently by signing Jeff Nelson from the Yankees. And he implemented some addition-by-subtraction by removing clubhouse cancer, Ken Griffey, Jr. Through it all, he kept the brilliant leadership of the colorful Lou Pinella.

They had something special developing in the land of Starbucks, but the loss of homegrown superstar Rodriguez through Hicks' sheer absurdity renders his efforts null and void.

On top of that, Texas--though certainly acquiring what Hicks termed "cache" around the majors--has no guarantee to be that much better next year. Manager Johnny Oates still has to hand the ball to his "ace," Kenny Rogers, every fifth day (insert The Gambler joke here).