Kenny--still out of touch

["Berry, Mark S" <berrym@BATTELLE.ORG>]

Maybe I'm way off base here, but was anyone else less than moved by Kenny's
gesture toward the Sept. 11 tragedy. In case you missed it, he donated
$5,000 and is pledging $50 for every assist.

Far be it from me to tell someone how to spend their money, but this guy
makes $7 million a year. He joked about "selling one of his cars" during the
lockout. Doesn't his gesture seem a little, I don't know... hollow? I mean,
this is a guy who could really do something substantial, yet this comes
across kind of cheap. Am I wrong?

I watched staff where I work-people who make a tiny fraction of what Kenny
makes-donate thousands of dollars. One man here gave a check for $1,000-a
huge sum for him and his family. That's about 1/50th of his annual salary.
Kenny's $5,000 donation is 1/1,400th of his. Even if Kenny dishes out 500
assists (highly unlikely) we're still only talking about 1/233rd of his
salary.

The people here raised $12,000 in a week's time, and these are average,
working people with families at home. Many baseball teams-entire
organizations-donated a day's pay. That included the traveling secretary as
well as the Ken Griffey Jr.'s of the world. Hundreds of thousands of
dollars.

I don't know, it just didn't sit well with me. Maybe it's my bias against
Kenny showing through, but it seemed much more like a grandstand move than
any kind of substantial show of support.

Mark