“In essence, if I take what you call a San Diego discount then I’m affecting their market. I’m affecting what they are going to make. It’s a lot like real estate. That’s the reason why. The way the game of baseball is set up, we have to protect each other. We have to do what’s best for each other.”

—-San Diego Padres superstar first baseman Adrian Gonzalez, explaining to an interviewer why he would sign with the highest bidder when he becomes a free agent next season, rather than stay in San Diego, his home, for a lesser salary.

If you don’t follow baseball, you might not know who Adrian Gonzalez is. He is a phenomenal young (28) superstar who has yet to earn the mega-millions that his skill would demand on the open market, because he has yet to fulfill his obligation to the team that brought him to the majors, the San Diego Padres. His time is coming, however: he will be a free agent after the 2011 season. The Padres, a small market franchise without a spendthrift owner, can’t and won’t pay as much to keep their best player as large market predators like the Yankees, Red Sox, Angels or Phillies will pay to acquire him. Gonzalez will be able to demand in the vicinity of 20 million dollars a year from these teams. The only hope the Padres have would be if Gonzalez, a longtime resident of San Diego and active in the community there, will accept less money to stay where he has roots, what is referred to as a “home town discount.”

The player’s statement today makes it clear that he not only won’t accept such a discount, but that he considers it his duty to get as much money for his services on the open market as possible. His argument: his salary will set the standard for other players when they seek free agency. Just as superstars Alex Rodriguez and Mark Teixeira established the contract standards for Gonzalez by getting massive contracts, so he feels he must get the deal that pays him  the most money possible, even if it means that he has to leave a place where he and his family are comfortable and happy.

This would be an admirable and ethical position if the only thing that matters in life was money, and if money’s value to an individual did not progressively diminish as its amount increases. Neither of these is true however. Although sports agents, because it enriches them, usually mislead their trusting clients by convincing them that money, and only money, should determine which team they sign with, it is absurd for that to be the determining factor in all cases. Gonzalez, for example, will make more than  $5 million next season, and is considered grossly underpaid by baseball standards. Next season, if he signs for the lowest imaginable salary for a player of his talents and production, that income will be raised to $15 million a year for six years or more. What difference will the additional four or five million dollars a year that the New York Yankees or Boston Red Sox could play him mean to his enjoyment of life, his family’s security, or any other meaningful aspect of his existence? Very little. Probably none at all, in fact. On the other hand, cities are not fungible. Friends and community ties matter. Is the difference between spending six months a year in , say, Detroit, and spending it in one’s home town of San Diego worth giving up $5 million extra dollars? It might be, if you are going to have $15 million a year no matter what.

Unions, all unions, do not work just for better salaries and more money. They fight so that workers can have power over their lives, and to make sure that they have choices and options. If Gonzalez really wants to do something for future players, he could use his free agency to break the chains of  conventional wisdom (the value-challenged and materialistic wisdom that says, “Are you kidding? Pass up that kind of money?”) that now have players annually leaving playing and living situations where they are comfortable and happy for  teams and cities that make them and their families miserable—all for extra money that makes no real difference at all. He could restore some balance to the free agent process, so players like him don’t feel that they are betraying the union by using considerations other than pure greed to decide where they want to play, considerations like quality of life, proximity to home, schools for the kids, culture, weather, and many other factors.

It is not a betrayal of one’s colleagues to remind them that some things are more important than money, particularly when you have more of that than you know what to do with. In fact, it might be the best, most ethical and most courageous thing Adrian Gonzalez could do.