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Tuna goes for $736k; Pujols gets perks with $240 million
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Note to coastal fishermen: If there are any bluefin tuna in area waters, you may want to go find some and then head to Japan.
From the Associated Press wire:
“TOKYO — This tuna is worth savoring: It cost nearly three-quarters of a million dollars.
“A bluefin tuna caught off northeastern Japan fetched a record 56.49 million yen, or about $736,000, on Thursday in the first auction of the year at Tokyo’s Tsukiji fish market. The price for the 593-pound (269-kilogram) tuna beat last year’s record of 32.49 million yen.
“The price translates to 210,000 yen per kilogram, or $1,238 per pound — also a record, said Yutaka Hasegawa, a Tsukiji market official.”
That’s a lot of bucks to make a sandwich. So, maybe Tight Line Jr. and his buddies can go get rich, even if they wind up landing a regular local tuna. A little spray paint and who’s to know? And if they’re paying that much for a tuna, what on earth would they give for a bushel of local oysters?
More about the story, from the Associated Press:
“The winning bidder, Kiyoshi Kimura, president of Kiyomura Co., which operates the Sushi-Zanmai restaurant chain, said he wanted to give Japan a boost after last year’s devastating tsunami.
“‘Japan has been through a lot the last year due to the disaster,’ a beaming Kimura told AP Television News. “Japan needs to hang in there. So I tried hard myself and ended up buying the most expensive one.”
Bless his heart. Last year, a Hong Kong entrepreneur had the highest bid, the AP said, noting that some slices of Bluefin can sell for $24 a pop at upscale Sushi bars.
Now, I enjoy an occasional tuna sandwich. But the only sushi I ever had left me with a distinct and recurring impression that I’d just eaten the wrong fish bait. Yet even if I liked sushi, and I don’t, that $24 a pop is way outside my price range — and probably my whole neighorhood’s price range as well, even though some of my neighbors live in quite pricey houses and for some obscure reason wear dress clothes when they mow the lawn. In my world, I’m the guy who keeps threatening to get a couple of goats and a mule to tie up in the front yard.
And I digress. Albert Pujols probably could afford the prized Bluefin tuna — which for that price should have a better name, like Trump Tuna.  But forget a piece of sushi, Pujols probably could afford 200 tunas.
Pujols, the former Cardinals slugger and future baseball Hall of Famer, signed a $240 million contract with the Los Angeles Angels, the AP said. With perks.
Again, per the AP, not only is Pujols set to make as much as $268.75 million in the next 20 years, the guy gets four season tickets to home games for a decade, along with a hotel suite on road trips, a luxury suite at the Angels’ ballpark for his charitble group for 10 home games a year and six-figure bonuses if he achieves certain milestones.
Which all goes to once again remind me that instead of studying to be a hack journalist in college, I should’ve been a baseball player.
Or maybe gone trolling for tuna on the seas of Japan.

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