Grapes of Wrath
Joe Maddon, the first-year manager of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, has brought a novel system of fines to the team. "All of our fines are based on bottles of wine," said Maddon, obviously a wine lover. Most managers take cash from their players and save it for some purpose — charity or a team party perhaps. But money is mundane to Maddon.
"I have these Ping-Pong balls with numbers written on them, and then there is a wine list with numbers," he said. "If you do something wrong, you pick a number and you get fined anywhere from 20 bucks to 200 bucks, depending on which number you pull out.
"We're putting this wine cellar together at the ballpark. They can have a drink after the game, and when they go out in the off-season with their wives or their girlfriends, they can be hot stuff when they go to a restaurant and the wine list shows up."
From AP.