Zambrano’s massive credit card debt affecting his play

CHICAGO, IL — Carlos Zambrano, who has won only once since signing a $91 million contract extension, is struggling under the weight of an enormous amount of credit card debt, according to Cubs teammates.

“Z’s phone will not stop ringing,” Cubs first baseman Derrek Lee said Thursday. “Every time he picks it up, and he’s like, ‘No, he’s not here, can I take a message?’ I think the other day he probably got about eight calls from creditors.”

The problems stemmed from Zambrano’s poor understanding of the nature of his contract, which, while guaranteed, does not promise him the entire $91 million up-front.

“See, Zambrano’s obsessed with getting frequent flyer miles,” said third baseman Aramis Ramirez. “So he went out and made $91 million in purchases because he wanted the miles. The problem was that he doesn’t have $91 million to pay them off. The minimum payments alone are like $2 million a month, and he is really struggling.”

“It was probably a mistake to spend the full $91 million of my contract on my credit card,” Zambrano reflected over the weekend. “Particularly when I received my itemized statement from my Southwest Airlines Visa card, I realized that some of my purchases might have been non-essential. For example, I bought a team of oxen, you know, to help me strengthen my legs in the offseason. I should have probably waited till the offseason to buy them, but I got a sweetheart of a deal. I bought a $7 million house, and they made me cover the credit card fees, which sucked, but do you know how many miles you get for $7 million? A lot.”

Zambrano also made some very magnanimous purchases, including an endowment to the Universidad de Caracas (the Carlos Zambrano Emeritus Professor of Modern Dance; $3.8 million) and the purchase of $61 million of his native Venezuela’s sovereign debt.

“I used PayPal for that one,” Zambrano said. “At the end of the transaction, they asked me if I was sure I wanted to use my credit card, because I’d incur a fee. Hell yeah I want to use my credit card! $61 million in sovereign debt gets you a lot of plane tickets.”

Zambrano is right about that. His Southwest airlines balance now includes 84,000 points, good for 7,000 round-trip flights to anywhere in the continental United States. “I tell you what, it’s going to make getting home a lot easier,” Zambrano said. “I can fly to Miami and then just pay for a connector to Venezuela. Not bad.”

Zambrano, who is also eligible for significant savings at Dollar Rent-a-Car, hopes to turn around his season this weekend. “I just have to put the debt out of my head,” he said, “but it seems to always be there. Except when I’m on the mound, then I don’t even think about it. That’s why sometimes I like to stay out there for a long time.”

It’s going to be tough for this sport to sweep any nations, but it’s still pretty frickin’ cool!