Guaranteed contracts

I am not 100% sure about the NBA, but most MLB contracts are guaranteed.  The NFL contracts are not.  That is why the NFL players bargain for signing bonuses, front-end loaded deals, and portions of the their contracts as "guaranteed money".   In the NFL, when a players signs a multi-million dollar deal over several years, much of that is not guaranteed.  No wonder they do not want long-term deals.  The NFL football is a brutal sport and a player is one hit away from injured reserve. 

This brings me back to basball.  In the 50's and well before free agency, Mickey Mantle won the Triple Crown one season.  The Yankees cut his pay the following year after his numbers went down.  This was Mickey Mantle for crying out loud!

Once in the last 1920's, Babe Ruth was asked by the press whether he felt guilty about making more money than President Hoover.  To which, the Babe responded "I had a better year than he did".

Once former Tiger great Al Kaline turned down a pay increase because he did not feel that he earned it.  He had a subpar year.

Well, those days are obviously long gone.  But, in those days, one's year had significance and impacted their pay.  Not now.  It has always caused me to shake my head in reading of player, in his mid to late 30's, signs a deal in which their pay goes up each year, particularly with long-term deals.  So as a player grows older, his skills diminish yet his pay goes up.  Sounds counterintuitive to me.