DEREK Jeter may not be the best shortstop in the major leagues, but he plays baseball well enough that the Yankees want to pay him $17 million a year to do it in New York City — $119 million over the seven years of his new contract. Thus Jeter stands to be the highest-paid player in the game, at least for the next 45 minutes, and only the odd crank thinks of this as extraordinary.
So why is everybody in such a swivet over how much it’s going to cost to elect a junior senator from New York state this year?
No matter how entertaining the Yankees are this year (spring training starts in 27 days!) they won’t be as much fun as Hillary-Rudy 2000 — and total Senate-race spending certainly will come in well under the Yankees’ total payroll.
At least, that is, the portion of the Senate spending that’s subject to honest reporting. Wednesday, the day New York learned of Jeter’s good fortune, it also was announced that Mayor Giuliani’s campaign has raised $12 million — without having broken a sweat. Such is the power of George W. Bush’s fund-raising engine that he can smile on a local candidate and cause a cash tsunami.
Hillary Rodham Clinton raised $8 million, and for sure there’s going to be a lot more.
Early — and probably conservative — estimates are that some $47 million will be spent by the two major candidates between now and November. This represents a rise of about 25 percent over the $38 million that Alfonse D’Amato and Chuck Schumer spent in their memorable 1997 slugfest.
But let’s put this increase in perspective: David Cone just got a 50 percent pay hike — to $12 million — though, of course, he pitched a perfect game for the Yankees last year.
George Steinbrenner, to put it mildly, doesn’t agree to raises of this sort because he has a soft spot in his heart — or his head. Fact is, there’s a lot of discretionary money bobbing about in this extraordinary economy of ours.
If there’s enough cash available to push Steinbrenner’s payroll well above $100 million this year — and sports-business analysts believe that will happen — what’s so terrible about spending less than one-half that amount on a benchmark race for the United States Senate?
There are not many questions more significant than whether the Yankees can win three World Series in a row. But the matter of which junior senator from New York will be voting on the next nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court — Rudy Giuliani or Hillary Rodham Clinton — is right up there.
New Yorkers willingly pay $5.50 for a tub of beer at Yankee Stadium — and $10 for a Pokemon video — so what’s wrong with spending under three bucks apiece on the Senate campaign?
True enough, direct contributions to the campaign come mostly in denominations of $1,000 — and the cash is rolling in from out of state.
This may seem to twist the debate in favor of the affluent (or, in Mrs. Clinton’s case, the Peoples Liberation Army) — but it really doesn’t.
There are many special-interest bulldozers at work leveling the playing field — like the extraordinary political slush fund assembled by Dennis Rivera of New York’s hospital-workers union. More often than not, there are no meaningful reporting requirements attending special-interest participation.
Rivera’s union, Local 1199, has been an unofficial partner in the Clinton campaign for at least a year.
Sometimes the assistance comes in the form of hard currency: Six weeks ago, 1199 gave $500,000 of its members’ money to the U.S. Senate Democratic Campaign committee — which turned around and sprinkled a like amount on Mrs. Clinton’s undertaking.
Sometimes it’s an in-kind effort, like the 10-day-long anti-Giuliani rally staged in front of One Police Plaza last March — demonstrations that no doubt Rivera means to replicate as the Amadou Diallo case proceeds in Albany County.
Rivera — working wholly within the law, to be sure — last year manipulated the union’s pension funds so as to produce a $14-million-plus slush fund (whence came the $500,000 spent directly on Hillary’s behalf). Much of the money went to fund a TV ad campaign that frightened Gov. Pataki so badly that he mortgaged New York’s future on new health-care entitlements — but there’s plenty left to help out the first lady this fall.
And it’s not just Rivera. Look for a lot of teachers-union cash to go to ads that dovetail with the Clinton message on education — virtually none of which will be reportable as campaign contributions.
There is, intrinsically, nothing wrong with this. The First Amendment applies to unions, too. (But wouldn’t it be nice if soft-money ads carried disclaimers, like on cigarette packages: “Warning. This ad contains hot air that could turn your head”?)
Actually, there’s nothing wrong with spending $47 million — or $60 million — on this Senate campaign. Its outcome is that important.
And, just for the record, so is Derek Jeter.
E-mail: mcmanus@nypost.com