| 22 June 2010
Remember The Players Club, the high-end magazine Lenny Dykstra tried to put out before everything blew up in Lenny's face? It was to be given to ballplayers and their agents and featured advice on how to spend (and save) the many millions of dollars they earned while playing. The magazine was filled with advertisements for super-expensive jewelry, luxury cars, fine cigars, and private jet companies.
Monumentally egregious mismanagement aside, the idea for The Players Club seemed like a winner. Athletes make millions of dollars and the more that can be done to help them spend it responsibly, the better for everyone. And the advertisers that signed on from the get-go seemed to fit perfectly, especially the private jet companies.
In the 2004 issue of the Street & Smith's Baseball Yearbook, Pete Williams gives us a great insight into this culture with an article called "Have Private Jet, Will Travel".
During the final week of last season, Jorge Posada walked across the tarmac at the private Raytheon Aircraft terminal in Tampa. Parked in front of the New York Yankees' All-Star catcher were four private jets, one of which would transport him to Chicago, where he would join his teammates to face the White Sox.It was minutes before 10 a.m., Posada's scheduled departure time, but he wasn't worried. Just a half-hour earlier, a chauffeured Cadillac Escalade drove him and his marketing agent, Edgar Andino, from Posada's north Tampa home, where the catcher spent the night with his wife and two young children. His teammates, meanwhile, had flown to Chicago the previous afternoon after the end of their weekend series against the Devil Rays.
When the Escalade arrived at Raytheon, Posada stepped out curbside. He passed quickly through the lobby, presented identification to the captain of his plane and, barely breaking stride, they headed to the Tarmac.
Welcome to the exclusive world of private aviation, where for a price professional athletes can avoid the post-9/11 hassles of commercial air travel and fly autograph-hound-free luxury - and in some cases even depart from team travel itineraries to spend additional time with family.
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The article goes on to detail more of the prices and perks of private jet travel. Trips generally cost anywhere between $4,000 and $12,000 for each hour of flight time. When Nomar Garciaparra flew up to watch his wife Mia Hamm play in the World Cup, the two hour flight cost him $9,500. Marquis Jet Partners, the number one service at the time of the article, would sell clients 25-hour blocks of flight usage, ranging from $109,000 to $330,000 depending on the size of the aircraft.
But it's not like the players were paying for garbage. The planes included
between seven and ten leather seats, each with seatbelt latches made of 24-karat gold. The carpet is freshly shampooed and the ceiling lined with suede. There are up to five video monitors, each capable of displaying different movies. The bathroom is stocked with toiletries and is spacious, unlike the knee-crunching lavatories on commercial flights. There's even a flight attendant on board the larger aircraft.
They also get access to the on-board phones at no cost and personalized concierge service:
Taking a cue from the Four Seasons hotel chain, he has each player's food, beverage and entertainment preferences kept on a computer file. That way, Posada always will have Dr. Pepper on his flight. There will be pizza from a Cincinnati eatery for Barry Larkin and seafood for Tino Martinez. Mo Vaughn gets his pick of Adam Sandler films.No detail is ignored. When Posada and his family boarded a flight from Chicago to New York following the All-Star Game, there was cake to celebrate daughter Paulina's first birthday.
Posada, Garciaparra, and the others aren't the only players mentioned in the article. Alex Rodriguez is credited as giving one of the main partners the idea for a "premium, private-jet charter service". Roberto Alomar is mentioned to have taken the private jet to Puerto Rico during the season, while Roger Clemens talks about flying home to see his sons play ball and flying his sick mother around the country to see memorable moments. Mike Hampton, Tom Glavine, and Curt Schilling are said to often take the private jet instead of the team-supplied first-class ticket when flying ahead of the team before starts. Other players mentioned as clients are David Cone, Mike Mussina, Andruw Jones, Manny Ramirez, Gary Sheffield, Mike Piazza, Larry Walker, Kevin Brown, Al Leiter, Johnny Damon, Ken Griffey, Bartolo Colon, Sammy Sosa, Magglio Ordonez, Trevor Hoffman, and Rafael Palmiero.
Not that I begrudge these players their convenience or luxury. When you make that much money and have that many commitments around the country, the extra couple of thousand dollars per flight is almost a no-brainer. But in the current economic climate, and with the way certain ballplayers are having a tough time finding big contracts, it's interesting to read an article like this. It's just not something that you'd find in a magazine today, though there's no doubt in my mind that things haven't changed much. I guess it took the heady times of the 2003 offseason to give us a glimpse into this world.
