[vincesanity82]

As a way to lessen the hardship of traveling to Japan for the season-opening games, the players on the Red Sox and A's will be getting $40,000 each for making the trip. Not bad at all for the horrors of first-class travel while being paid your already-supple salary.

The coaches, on the other hand, probably would make good use of that money. Maybe a down payment on a pool or stock it away for little Sally's college education. But they're getting squat for the trip and that's not sitting right with the Red Sox players.

During a players-only team meeting at City of Palms Park this morning at 8:30, the players decided unanimously, according to one player, that the Sox would not take the field for their scheduled 12:07 p.m. exhibition game against the Blue Jays today unless there was a resolution to MLB's decision not to extend an appearnce fee of $40,000 to all team coaches making the trip to Japan. All players are receiving the $40,000 appearance fee for the Tokyo trip. According to the same player, the players also agreed not to board the Red Sox' flight to Japan if the matter remained unresolved this evening.



Red Sox Threaten To Boycott Trip To Japan - FanHouse - AOL Sports Blog

[Phils20]

Good. But an even better thing to do if they can't get it resolved might be for the players to take a chunk of change and pay the coaches.

And not all players should give up an equal chunk. A player making 20 mil a year would put more in the someone making the minimum.

Not a perfect solution, but the team does need to honor the commitments it makes. It's isn't the fans fault that MLB is screwing the coaches.

Just my 2 cents!