BY ANTHONY SUNTAY

HAPPY New Year!

As we begin the New Year, I wanted to send a shout out to all possible sports patrons. Let’s start supporting athletes, who can excel internationally and help those that can eventually help themselves through their chosen fields of play.

One of these sports is baseball.

Through Baseball Philippines, the sport is now making inroads toward developing players that can represent our country better in foreign meets, but also paving the way for youngsters to further hone their skills so that they might be able to play in leagues abroad, like in Japan, Korea and Chinese Taipei.

Actually, sending players to the Major League isn’t that far-fetched anymore.

All you have to do is look at Geno Espineli, a pitcher under contract with the San Francisco Giants, who is a full-blooded Filipino. He recently visited the country to spread the news that we can make it in the sport. (More on him in next week’s column)

And making it to the Major League can give you some very good money.

Just look at what transpired in the final week of 2008.

The New York Yankees spent so much money on three players last week, it reminded me of the phrase “galit sa pera!”

They first signed up pitchers CC Sabathia and AJ Burnett for $161 million and $82.5 million, respectively.

Sabathia will get a $9-million signing bonus payable in three equal installments by Dec. 31, March 1 and finally July 31. He will get a salary of $14 million in ’09 and $23 million in the final six years of his contract, which is actually the biggest contract ever for a Major League pitcher in both total dollars and average salary.

The deal also calls for his getting paid semimonthly over the entire year, while most players are paid semimonthly only during the six months of the season. Over and above that, he specified that he will have a suite when on the road, and he can void the contract after 2011 to file for free agency.

Then a few days later, they signed first baseman Mark Teixeira for $180 million for eight years!

That brings their spree to $423.5 million in a matter of days!

So, it clearly shows that making it to the big leagues can be very profitable.

Baseball Philippines has actually sent one player abroad, pitcher Jon Jon Robles. After leading the Makati franchise to the title in Series 1, he was taken by a team in the Czech Republic!

This just shows that the Filipinos have the talent, it just needs to be harnessed and we can have players on the grandest stage in the US.

So let’s all get on the same page and support sports like baseball that can help our athletes in the long run.

Listen to Real Sports later today at 2:15 p.m. on Wave 89.1! We’ll air the first part of our interview with Geno Espineli!

Have a great year ahead! God Bless!

E-mail me at realsports891@yahoo.com