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(Photo by Eric Denton)

On August 23 2011; Jered Weaver shocked the MLB baseball world by signing a team friendly 5 year $85 mm dollar deal with the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. Here is the audio of Jered's one on one with the local media. 

Special Bonus - A Haiku to Jered Weaver

A lot of athletes say they play for the love of baseball. Then when huge sums of money get put on the table, they leave the team that groomed and molded them for the big bright lights of New York or the stinky smell of chowda-heads in Boston. It’s a crushing blow for fans when a franchise player leaves a team for money. It’s almost an act of betrayal. It’s like finding out your girlfriend of 6 years cheated on you with some guy who looks exactly like you but drives a better car. WHY WOULD YOU BREAK MY HEART LIKE THAT!

However, there are those feel good stories where players stay and sign to teams they want to play for. Cliff Lee recently left a huge payday on the table and signed with the Phillies. Instantly he was one of the most beloved players. Thankfully for us Angel fans, Jered Weaver put aside the guaranteed huge contract he would have gotten from free agency and signed a 5 year 85 million contract extension. 

Again, Weaver could have signed ANYWHERE and probably gotten a huge payday but chose to stay here. This is why he will forever remain a Golden God amongst Angel fans. I said this yesterday, but let me emphasize the point that Jered Weaver is so well loved in Anaheim that he could walk into a bar and one of two things will happen; all of his beers will be paid for and women’s bosums will be shown. If I had a daughter who was of legal age, I would give her to Weaver as an offering of how much I love the guy for the choice he made. His decision actually helped me out with a life-long issue I have. That issue is buying a players shirt or jersey.

Buying a player shirt or jersey is a HUGE commitment. I’m TERRIFIED of commitment. Whenever I go to Jack in the Box, I ALWAYS order the same thing but it takes me about 10 minutes sitting in the drive-thru line talking myself into trying something else. There’s just something about their dollar chicken sandwich and two tacos that soothes my soul. I’ve done the hours and logged in the research and I figured out for every $1.25 I plan to spend, it takes me about 10 minutes to figure out if I really want to spend that small amount of cash. So imagine how my mind works when player shirts are involved at the rate of $25+. That’s 200 minutes spent on looking over a player’s contract, figuring out if a player will be traded mid-season, or the chances of that player breaking his leg after hitting a walk-off grand slam (sorry Morales, I would have bought your shirt). With Jered Weaver’s potential free agency just a year away, it was an extremely difficult decision to buy a Weaver shirt. This decision was more difficult than the time my kid and my nephew were hanging on the side of the cliff and I had to choose to save one. I did not realize it until I found a rubber ducky in my kid’s room but according to my nephew; my son had been trying to kill him.

Yes, that was a “The Good Son” reference and you can’t find that anywhere else. So cheers to Jered Weaver for staying with the Angels organization and making every single fan here extremely proud to have a guy who is truly here for the love of the sport and team. With that being said, I wrote you a haiku. 

Big pay day was there

Left on the table to stay

Girls show him your breasts

Ricardo Marquez is a baseball humorist for LA Angels Insider.com

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