Retired Baseball Slugger Cecil Fielder ruined by gambling

[PokerPaul]

One thing that may be particularly tough on highly paid pro athletes is that your prime earning career only lasts about 10-12 years. During that time your making astronomical salaries, you live the life accordingly.

The problem is, once your playing years are over, no more 7 or 8 digit annual income to support that lifestyle.

Yes you may have amassed $40 mill over playing career, but once the regular paychecks stop coming in, a 50 foot mansion, with all the taxes, gardening, cleaning, maintenance, etc etc, will amount to huge $$ annually. Furthermore, it sure sounds like the wife and family had become accustomed to quite the expensive lavish lifestyle with restaurants, shopping, furtinure sprees.

It sure doesnt sound like they took even a slight step back in lifestyle to counter the regular loss in income.

Hence cec may have started to look for any way to continue that, investing in businesses that went bad, and eventually gambbling......of course im just hypothesizing.

Anyways, without high paying career after baseball, looks like they couldnt face facts that the gravy train ended.

If they had even tucked away $10 mill to live off that as a principle investment, it sounds like a lot (and it is), but even that may only yield about 600-700k annually from a good investment expert. Slash off taxes, and they're left with maybe 400k net income per year.

For the average family thats huge, but coming from where they were, that would be a big step down.

[drewjustdrew]

I am assuming the 47mill is a gross number.
less: 5 million for agent/assistants
12 million for taxes
4 million for house renovations
3 million for actual house

This starts him with 23 million for other investments/recreation/living. Probably a more realistic starting point than the 40 million being used. Of course, it is still a massive amount to squander.

Maybe he'll be the next refrigerator Perry, working construction for a living and supplementing his income with hot-dog eating contest appearances.

[MrDannimal]

Exactly. Then there's all the regular upkeep (cleaning service, lawn service, massive utility bills for a giant house, pool cleaners...)

then there's all the "I'm rich, so I should have sweet stuff" costs. The house had two sweet home theatres, all the cars, I'm sure there was nice clothes and jewelry and stuff.

Sure, it shouldn't be hard to save enough on top of all that in order to live comfortably when you retire, but if you're a compulsive gambler it's pretty likely that would be the first money to go.

[Fitz]

I feel sorry for people who are ill whether it be alcohol, drugs or gambling whichever the case may be. I am, however, also a proponent of personal responsibility. This is where I feel there is often a fine line to be navigated. We have all seen players who were in over their heads. I watched a black chip crap game in Vegas one time where you could almost see some of them wince when the dice were thrown. Casinos have perfected the stretch and break for problem players; it sounds like Trump certainly did that to Fielder.

From the article about Fielder, it seems his gambling losses weren't his only problem. It appears lifestyle and business failures played a part as well. The man made 47 million dollars throughout his playing career; what happened to the rest of it? Perhaps I am being defensive because I profit from the gambling I do(As do many of us here), and I can see this as another rallying cry for the anti-gambling, overly moralistic religious right.

It isn't over for Cecil Fielder. A good bankruptcy attorney, some well chosen and emotional words of contrition and sorrow coupled with a book about his fall from grace, a tapping of the virtually endless cash of the sports memorabilia world, and he is back with more than most.

Good luck all,

Fitz

[jmark]

[ QUOTE ]
Gambling gets a bad rap in that Cecil Fielder article.

The article details several gambling debts, close to a million dollars.

But he blew over 40 million! It lists several failed businesses he invested in.

But being a lousy businessman doesn't make for much of a story, I guess.

[/ QUOTE ]

Don't forget that his wife blew several million remodeling their house many times.

[MicroBob]

PokerPaul brings up some good points.


Kind of related story....except the other way.


I know of a reasonably well-known NBA player (now retired) who played NCAA D-1 ball BEFORE the prop-48 academic requirements. Never would have gotten in otherwise as he really couldn't read (since then, he has come back to finish his degree).

When he got to the NBA I think they had some kind of road-trip in his first week and the meal-money was something like $100/day. It was a 7-day trip so he was handed $700 in cash.
Very concerned about this he called his former college coach (and mentor) because he just never had that much cash on him before and he didn't know what to do or how to handle it. In college-ball everything is pretty much taken care of for you but in the pros you're on your own.

The guy went on to make millions of dollars in the NBA (and to my knowledge didn't blow it all) but I suspect his family and mentors, etc kept him in check.
For others who aren't used to having money and are primarily uneducated and gullible it can be very dangerous. Easy to get mixed up in stuff you shouldn't get mixed-up in.

Cecil Fielder in his retirement days purchasing a nice home struck me as the type of individual who probably doesn't fit this mold completely and certinly he should have known better.
But the general fact remains that there are a lot of athletes who come from poor and uneducated backgrounds, some of whom have never been to 'the big city' before.

I think I saw on ESPN SportsCentury that Sammy Sosa used to keep a lot of his cash in the pocket of his baseball jersey because he just didn't really know what he was supposed to do with it.

[FatMan]

If you read the linked story, check out where he went to college. UNLV, kind of ironic.

[Bulldog]

[ QUOTE ]
I am assuming the 47mill is a gross number.
less: 5 million for agent/assistants
12 million for taxes
4 million for house renovations
3 million for actual house

This starts him with 23 million for other investments/recreation/living.

[/ QUOTE ]

$47,000,000 is a gross number ( link ) but if you think only 25% went to taxes, well, you've obviously never been in the $1,000,000+ tax bracket! [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

[fnurt]

Hard to believe any UNLV player never saw $700 in cash, considering the history of the program.

[Blarg]

Tyson got in a LOT of fights on the street, too. He was quite the bully, and had to pay off a lot of lawsuits because he just couldn't control himself. And heck, lawsuits are expensive even when you win. Tyson wasn't winning.