What can you get for $875,000?

We all know that the economic environment of Major League Baseball hasn't been based in any form of reality for the better part of twenty years. This alternate reality was taken to a new level this week, however, as the $28-million-dollar man Roger Clemens took the hill in Denver for the New York Yankees.

The math has been done over and over again in the media, but I'm so giddy that I have to put it in writing once again.

Roger, who is making approximately $875,000 a start, tossed 90 pitches and gave up 4 runs during his 4 1/3 inning offering on Thursday night.

That's almost $202,000 an inning.

That's about $10,000 a pitch.

In other words, if I had the money Roger made throwing the four balls that constituted the only walk he gave up on the night, I could buy Sox season tickets for all four members of my family.

And if I got his share of the check for his two offerings that left the yard, I could just about pay my grad school bills.

But baseball exists in an alternate dimension. Let's make some more useful comparisons.

Jon Papelbon had a pretty good season last year, right? He made approximately $335,400 for his season of work. So for that chunk of change, you could either have almost 70 innings of 0.92 ERA...or you could have the 2nd and 3rd inning of Clemens' Thursday performance, where he threw 41 pitches, allowing 2 runs and 3 hits.

I'm cherry picking, of course. Rudy Seanez made $1,900,000 off the Sox last year, and I'd rather have two Clemens starts than another season of Rudy.

But the bell needs to be answered by the Yankees. This is a terrible contract for an over-the-hill pitcher. He's got a 1-2 record and he hasn't pitched to an American League team yet. Sure, this team needed to shake things up, but teams with $200 million dollar payrolls should have the depth to withstand injuries to a couple of starters.

But more power to them, since they have the money. There are other teams that have the financial resources to make obscene and irrational deals like this, but they don't consider that ability reason enough to make poor business decisions.

But what do I know. I haven't won any World Series this century either.