Dec 22, 2023, 3:00 PM ET
After Shohei Ohtani’s record contract, there are many who wonder how baseball arrived at this type of astronomical salary.
Since he broke into the Major Leagues of American baseball, the name of the Japanese Shohei Ohtani has been associated time and again with the legendary Babe Ruth, who until now was the two-way player – hitter and pitcher – par excellence to use as reference.
Although Ohtani is quite far from the 714 home runs and 1,200 innings that Ruth pitched in his 22-year career, no one dares to argue that the Japanese has been the most complete two-way star in history.
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And Ruth was basically a great pitcher who became the most devastating offensive force in the Major Leagues (MLB), while Ohtani averaged 40 home runs and 20 steals as a hitter and 11.4 strikeouts per nine innings per 162 games in his first six seasons in the most important league of professional ball.
Two extraordinary and exceptional cases. Therefore, it is no coincidence that Ruth and Ohtani, in addition to being protagonists on the field, also stand out in the saga of the salary evolution of the major leagues.
With the contract that Ohtani recently signed as a free agent with the Los Angeles Dodgers (for 10 years and $700 million), the Japanese broke the salary barrier, not only in the MLB, but also in any of the professional sports leagues in the world. Until now, the largest contract that had been awarded in MLB was the 12-year, $426.5 million extension that Mike Trout signed with the Los Angeles Angels in March 2019.
For the first decades of its modern history, baseball was a recreational game, but in 1869 the Cincinnati Red Stocking became the first team to pay its players a salary, laying the foundation for professionalism in that sport.
According to the Society for American Baseball History Research (SABR), when the National League was founded in 1876, the highest-paid player was Al Spalding, who was a pitcher, manager and executive for the Chicago White Stocking (now Chicago Cubs). ), with an astronomical salary of 4 thousand dollars.
It took nearly four decades before a player earned a double-figure salary. In 1912, future Hall of Fame members; Honus Wagner, Roger Bresnahan and Hugh Jennings, as well as veteran Jimmy Callahan, earned $10,000 for the season.
The legendary Ty Cobb, who hit .366 for life (the MLB record) and had more than four thousand hits in a 24-year career, was the highest paid between 1914 and 1921, when he set the record with a salary of $25 thousand.
But everything changed when Ruth was traded by the Boston Red Sox to the New York Yankees. According to a 1932 article in The Sporting News, ‘El Bambino’ earned $10,000 in his final season in Boston, in 1919, to jump to $20,000 in 1920, $30,000 in 1921, $52,000 in 1922-26, $70 thousand in 1927-29 and $80 thousand in 1930-31, in his years with the Yankees.
These amounts should not be taken lightly. Ruth earned three times the salary of the second highest paid in the league, in the midst of the Great Depression, which began with the crash of the New York Stock Exchange in September 1929 and caused one of the worst economic crises in the United States and , by domino effect, of the world.
Ruth, who received more than a million dollars for playing baseball in his career, earned more than the president of the United States, while the country’s industrial production fell by 46% and unemployment rose by 607%.
Although Ruth retired after the 1935 season, his salary record remained intact until Joe DiMaggio earned $100,000 with the Yankees in the 1949 and 1950 campaigns.
Except for the biggest stars of the most popular teams, baseball players’ salaries remained relatively close to those of the rest of North American workers until the arrival of free agency in the Major Leagues in 1976.
Independent arbitrator Peter Seitz’s decision to resolve a dispute between the Oakland Athletics and their star pitcher Jim ‘Catfish’ Hunter in December 1974 opened a Pandora’s box that would change the industry for life. Seitz declared Hunter a free agent after Oakland breached some terms of his contract.
Hunter signed, with the Yankees, the first million-dollar contract in history (for five years and $3.75 million).
But it was when Seitz declared pitchers Dave McNally and Andy Messersmith free agents in December 1975 that the reserve clause that for a century had given teams perpetual rights to players officially died, forcing a negotiated free agency system. .
In 1979, pitcher Nolan ‘The Express’ Ryan was on his way to becoming the strikeout king, he had a ring with the 1969 New York Mets and had grown tired of losing to the Angels who had only reached the postseason once. time. Ryan entered the market and, to be close to home, opted to sign with the Houston Astros for four years and $4.5 million, becoming the first million-per-season player in MLB.
In 1985, Philadelphia Phillies third baseman Mike Schmidt was the first of two million annually, while in 1992, Puerto Rican Bobby Bonilla came to the Mets with a 5-year, $29 million contract, which paid him $6.1 million in the first season.
Before the 1997 season, outfielder Albert Belle agreed to a five-year, $55 million contract with the Chicago White Sox, making him the highest-paid and first with a salary of $10 million a year. One of the clauses in the contract stipulated that he had to be among the three highest paid, but the White Sox refused to give him the raise and Belle returned to the market two years later.
On December 12, 1998, right-hander Kevin Brown signed the first $100 million contract ($105 million and 7 seasons) with the Dodgers. The Dominican Alex Rodríguez scandalized the world when he agreed with the Texas Rangers for 10 years and $252 million in the winter of 2000. ‘A-Rod’ was the first player with an average salary of $25 million and later, when he signed with the Yankees another $270 million contract, it was the first to earn more than $30 million in the season.
A year before entering free agency for the first time in his career, outfielder Giancarlo Stanton agreed to a 13-year, $325 million extension with the Marlins in November 2014.
Since then, nine other players signed contracts of more than $300 million, including two from Dominican Manny Machado with the Padres (the first for 10 years and $300 million in 2019, which five years later was replaced by another for 11 seasons and $350 million) and Trout’s.
Until Ohtani’s historic deal, which will pay him $70 million annually — although some of the money is deferred — pitchers Justin Verlander (2023-24) and Max Scherzer (2022-24) held the record for average annual salary at $43.3. million, while outfielder Aaron Judge was the offensive player with the highest salary per season ($40 million) in a nine-year pact with the Yankees.
2023-12-22 20:00:00
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