Dee Gordon is rich, starting today. He was yesterday, too, by plenty of standards. But today he is $50 million rich, which is lifetime money if you are fortunate enough to have zero critical vices and half a pocket of common sense, for which he qualifies. He'll be 28 in April, which means the lifetime money came along at a good time, maybe the best time, and by all of this I mean to say, forget the money and remember the story.

Dee Gordon's extension could be worth as much as $64 million over six years. (AP) More

Gordon earned this day two winters ago, before the All-Star Games, the batting title, the Gold Glove. In a game where it's easy to be forgotten, and then easy to blame the game for your becoming forgettable, Gordon gathered up whatever was to come next, hoisted it to those narrow shoulders and lugged it all to here. An inch at a time. A rep at a time. Ninety feet at a time.

He'd lost a big-league job in Los Angeles and won it back. He'd hidden an easy smile under layers of disappointment, maybe anger, maybe confusion, and chose to smile again anyway. They weren't going to knock the bat out of Dee Gordon's hands anymore. They weren't going to take his job. They would not spoil his fun, no matter how many names were above his on some sorry, old spring depth chart, no matter what they thought of him. They could doubt him, they could marginalize him, they could even trade him, but Dee Gordon's career didn't belong to them anymore. It belonged to him. He was not ready to be forgotten.

Gordon agreed on Wednesday to a five-year, $50 million extension with the Miami Marlins, a contract that with a vesting option could be worth $64 million over six seasons. A year ago the Dodgers all but gave him away. Two years ago the Dodgers all but gave his position away.

So, yeah, the money's nice. Good. Fine. He'd take it, of course. But what it represents is the winter Dee Gordon went home looking like a defeated young man and four months later returned bigger, stronger, more capable and in charge of who he was and what he would become, for better or worse. Maybe he'd tell it different, but it seemed Gordon grew up that winter, and so would become a 25-year-old who'd chosen himself and the things he could control over a world that he could not.

In two years since: 293 games, a .311 batting average and .342 on-base percentage, 122 steals, 20 triples and a fearlessness that says, "I belong."

The money will spend. What will serve him better and for longer is that winter, the one in which he learned again who he could be, and so became the ballplayer he would be. The story's better.

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