Just for fun and before you read the answer below, guess how much the Oakland Athletics and Boston Red Sox players will each receive from Major League Baseball for their season-opening series in Japan this March?

I don’t spend much time thinking about player salaries and the financial aspects of the game, but for some reason this kind of shocked me. From SFGate.com:

All players who travel to Tokyo for the season-opening series between Oakland and Boston will receive $40,000, according to Major League Baseball officials, and that figure could rise depending on how much revenue the event creates. Because the two big-league games have sold out, it’s likely that the players each will get at least an additional $5,000.

Interesting they’re doing a little revenue sharing here. I guess it makes sense, given that MLB will probably want to do something like this every year. That’s a good way to get players interested. I wonder how it compares to the dough the Dodgers and Padres will get for their exhibition in China a week prior.

There had been rumblings that the Red Sox players had held out for more, and there was some concern in the Oakland clubhouse that Boston’s participants might wind up with a bigger payout than the A’s. Several players asked player representative Huston Street if that were the case, so Street checked with the Players Association and was assured that both teams will receive equal payouts. The major-league official confirmed that, too.

When you read that paragraph is sounds all very straightforward and democratic. But can you imagine the audio from those phone calls to Street? I’d like to hear some of that.

Rich Harden:“Um, yeah, Huston? This is Rich? Justin told me the Red Sox are getting $41,000 for going to Japan and that we’re just getting $40,000. Is that true? Because if that’s true I might not go.”

Or something like that.