Motivation Quote by Don Drysdale

Drysdale’s gripe lands because it’s not really about money; it’s about a vanished moral economy of sports. “When we played” isn’t just nostalgia-talk from a retired ace, it’s a claim that the relationship between labor and reward used to feel legible. A World Series check “meant something” because it signaled scarcity, validation, maybe even a kind of merit badge for pain: the extra money mattered, and the championship bonus felt like tangible proof the grind was worth it.

Then comes the knife twist: “Now all they do is screw your taxes.” It’s a punch line with an accountant’s deadpan, turning triumph into paperwork. Drysdale compresses a whole era shift into one complaint: baseball’s pay exploded, endorsements ballooned, and the romance of the “bonus” got replaced by a wealth-management problem. The check becomes so large it triggers a different relationship to the state and to personal identity. Winning doesn’t feel like a windfall; it feels like a complication.

The subtext is also generational resentment aimed sideways at modern players without fully blaming them. He’s criticizing an ecosystem where compensation has gotten so big it can’t be “felt” in the old way, where the underdog narrative is harder to sell because everyone looks rich on TV. Drysdale’s line works because it’s funny, yes, but also because it frames prosperity as its own kind of theft: not from the IRS, but from the meaning of the moment.