For the average baseball fan, many of whom with an annual income below $100,000 and in many cases well below that amount, the salaries being paid to today’s major league baseball players is simply incomprehensible. When fans hear that guys like Giancarlo Stanton, Alex Rodriguez and even our very own Clayton Kershaw are being paid in excess of $200 million to play a kids game, it boggles the mind. As one former major leaguer once said: “I’m making my children’s children’s children’s money.” Heck, even rookies will receive the MLB minimum of $545,000 in 2018 and $555,000 in 2019.

Incomprehensible indeed.

On the other hand, on any given day during the baseball season, there are only 750 total major leaguers on the 25-man rosters of the 30 MLB teams. That’s 750 major leaguers in the entire world, or (roughly) .0000000000000098 percent of a world population estimated at 7.6 billion.

On Monday morning it was being widely reported that soon-to-be 34-year-old (on December 27) Texas Rangers left-hander Cole Hamels and his wife Heidi had donated their $9.4 million mansion near Table Rock Lake in Reeds Springs, Missouri to Camp Barnabas, a ministry that provides a Christian camping experiences to kids with special needs and chronic illnesses, along with their siblings.

The soft-spoken 2002 first-round draft pick (by the Philadelphia Phillies) and four-time All-Star signed a 6-year / $144 million contract extension back on July 25, 2012, which currently makes him only the 33rd highest-paid player in the game today. But perhaps of greater interest is that it also means that the 6′-4″ / 205-pound crafty left-hander with a career record of 147-102 and career ERA of 3.37 over his 12 major league seasons is coming up on the final season of that six-year contract. And while there is every probability that Hamels will land at least one more free agent contract before he decides to hang up his spikes, his best days as a top-of-the-rotation starting pitcher are most likely already behind him.

Even though the Hamels’ incredibly generous donation is a rather unique one, for which it is receiving considerable media and social media publicity, a very large number of baseball’s highest paid players are among the most generous of all professional athletes when it comes to giving to the less fortunate. In fact, many have charities or foundations named after them for their incredible generosity including Dodgers third baseman Justin Turner (The JT Foundation), outfielder Yasiel Puig (The Wild Horse Foundation) and Clayton Kershaw, currently the highest-paid Dodger and seventh highest-paid major leaguer in the game (Kershaw’s Challenge) – to name only a very few.

Oh sure, there will undoubtedly some who will try to find something negative in an attempt to diminish the incredible generosity of Cole and Heidi Hamels by saying that this is nothing more than a publicity stunt or merely a tax write-off. But try convincing the kids who are helped by the kindness of the Hamels and the many other major leaguers who make endless contributions to their communities and to their respective causes. And while it may be true that making such charitable donations does indeed provide them with annual income tax relief, the simple truth – as we all know – is that the more you make, the more you are taxed – period.

Good on you, Cole and Heidi Hamels … good on you.

… and thank you.