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Palmeiro's strange decision to stay in Texas helps no one

Tom Glavine, as everybody knows by now, left his cushy job in Atlanta to go to New York, not because he thought that the Mets were headed to the World Series, but for the money. Doesn't everyone know that? Isn't that public knowledge?

A couple of years ago, Mike Hampton signed a deal to go to pitchers purgatory, Colorado, for one reason and one reason only -- the jack. It's a simple known fact. Isn't it?

And you know why Alex Rodriguez signed with the Texas Rangers. It wasn't because of the pitching.

Players get ripped all the time -- sometimes rightly, sometimes not -- for leaving one team to go to another. You know the drill. They're disloyal. They're selfish. They're greedy.

How many millions does one guy need, anyway?

So it's kind of funny now to see Rafael Palmeiro getting roasted for deciding to stay put.

Not that Palmeiro, the Texas designated hitter, doesn't deserve the hotfoot. He does. Refusing to be traded from the awful Rangers to the contending Chicago Cubs is, at best, puzzling. At worst, it's downright daffy.

But, hey … he likes Texas. His family likes it. He calls it home. So, with his no-trade clause in hand, Palmeiro has every right to stay in Texas and lose some more.

"I can't really talk for [Palmeiro]. I think everybody probably has their different cases or scenarios," San Diego's Phil Nevin says. Nevin, you may remember, squashed a deal in the offseason that would have sent him to Cincinnati in an exchange for the Reds' Ken Griffey Jr.

"For me, it came down to I just didn't want to leave. I had just signed a [four-year] contract. We had just built a house …"

The point is, players have lives, too. And the more they stable those lives -- hey, they're people, too -- the better off they are.

Still, this isn't stabilizing for Palmeiro. This is strange.

Sure, he likes Texas and he's made his home there and all that. But because Palmeiro's contract expires at the end of the season, there's no guarantee he'll even be with the Rangers next year. In fact, because of the arcane rules governing arbitration and free agency, by not accepting the trade to the Cubs, Palmeiro actually hurts his bargaining position with the Rangers. He's probably less likely to return to Arlington next season.

It's all very complicated.

"Staying here and helping this team get back to .500 is a possibility, and it would be a great thing if we were able to do that," Palmeiro said Sunday in explaining -- kind of -- his decision to stay. "I want to help them do that, and, in the meantime, hopefully work something out so I could finish my career here."

Palmeiro could have -- yeah, he should have -- accepted the trade to the Cubs. He could have helped out his beloved Rangers by doing that, getting them a couple of prospects in the deal.

He could have helped the Cubs, too, maybe played in the postseason, maybe made it to the World Series for the first time in his career and maybe showed that he still has plenty of pop left in his already Hall of Fame bat. It would have been painless. Maybe even enjoyable. And it would have been all over by the end of October, at the latest.

Then he could have returned to Texas for next season, if he wanted.

Instead he'll play out the string with the Rangers and go home in late September. And, judging by what Rangers owner Tom Hicks says, Palmeiro probably will play somewhere else in 2004.

"I'll be honest with you. If I'd have been in the fourth year of my contract, if I'd have had one year left on my deal, I probably would have done it," Nevin says of the trade to Cincinnati. "You don't get that many chances to win."

As it turns out, Nevin wouldn't have had the chance to win anyway, not in Cincinnati. As it turns out, Nevin avoided a Reds bloodbath by invoking his no-trade clause, killing the deal.

But Palmeiro -- he had the chance. His bat, in fact, could have made a difference.

And how many chances does a player get to really make a difference?

There's a gnawing feeling that there's more to this. And, of course, the more to it probably is money.

Palmeiro, who will be 39 years old in September, may well be signing the final contract of his career this offseason. Whether it's an extension with the Rangers or whether it's a deal with some other team, Palmeiro wants to strike it rich one more time.

Palmeiro is making about $9 million this season and he's reportedly asking Hicks for more than $20 million over the next three years. Maybe he thinks that refusing a deal to the Cubs is the best way to get it. He's undoubtedly wrong.

It's hard to fault a guy for trying to make things easy on his family. And it's hard to fault a guy for exercising his rights, whether he's a free agent (like Glavine and Hampton and A-Rod were at the time) or just wielding a powerful no-trade clause (like Palmeiro, Nevin, Juan Gonzalez and many others).

But it's hard, too, to smile and say everything's OK in a situation like this, where the Cubs lose, the Rangers lose and Palmeiro and his family may be missing their best chance to return to Texas.

Ballplayers, rightly or wrongly, regularly get ripped for fleeing for greener pastures.

This time, Palmeiro ought to get rung up for staying in his.

John Donovan is a senior writer for SI.com.

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