is the idea of "hometown discounts". I have seen several places now where they would love to pay Bay to play, but only at a "significant hometown discount". If you think about it this really makes no sense at all. In todays modern age (fast planes, internet video chat, etc.) what exactly is the player paying for when giving said discount? The only possible thing would be he gets to play for his childhood favorite team, but the childhood favorite things seems to mostly be beaten out of pro players by the time they go through the little league/american legion/high school/possibly college/6 levels of minors meat grinder.
In fact it seems like a hometown player is precisely one of these times where average is indeed NOT correct. But it is the TEAM who should be paying more. Certainly signing and Harden or a Bay would garner more interest in the Mariners from British Columbia, certainly the M's would gain the media and emotional bump of home town boy makes good, and all the good feelings and will that comes along with that, certainly the team will gain attendance for the locals that want to see the kid they coaching in little league or the kid that taught 3rd grade math to (in other words fans of the person, who would otherwise not be interested in a baseball game at all). Certainly my wife would rather go see the human element of "This guy grew up 200 miles away, was a huge M's fan growing up, and look now he is starring for them" instead of actual strike one, strike two, strike three.
So once again I ask, why in the world does the phrase "hometown discount" make any sense at all? It should be "hometown PREMIUM"!
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