The Seven Million Dollar Man

With the temperatures reaching almost 50 degrees out here in the foothills and Piratefest starting today, there seems to be baseball fever on the blog today. Lots of Pirate and other baseball related posts, almost too many to count. Count me in as having baseball fever, and what better way to talk about it than by focusing on a man who's been a whipping boy over the past few years, Mr. Adam LaRoche. For the sake of his baseball future, Mr. LaRoche better come out of the gates like a bat out of hell, or the few remaining Pirate fans left in the area will be ready to crucify him alongside other Pirate busts as Derek Bell and Pat Meares.

This guy was a Pirate?

Much has been made of the Bucs resigning Mr. LaRoche for the paltry sum of $7.05 million USD, especially compared to the contractual figures tossed around for Prince Fielder and everyone's favorite Bucco from yesteryear, the X-Man.

"Congrats, you got out of here. How? Please tell me how!"

Much has been made of Mr. LaRoche's avid hunting adventures in the offseason. From what I've heard, he's pretty good at it, on a consistent basis. And I'm sure a large portion of that seven million went to some pretty sweet artillery.

How many deer could I kill with this?

So my question is...if I'm Neal Huntington, why not put a stipulation in his contract saying that Mr. LaRoche could only spend X amount of time in the woods, and at least double that amount of time in the cage? If he's a slow starter, let's get him hitting baseballs instead of big game. If they can write in stipulations forbidding motorcycle usage, why not overuse of firearms?