Baseball's Skyrocketing Salaries

It can no longer be said that baseball is just a game. Actually, it

has been many years since that statement could be considered true.

Only recently, however, did the entire nation, not just sports fans

realize the extent to which this fact is true. Athletes, for the most

part, have always been paid better than the average American; but now,

with Alex Rodriguez's new contract, he is truthfully worth just as

much as the entire franchise that he plays for.

Baseball salaries have skyrocketed out of control, and something must

be done before the integrity of the game, and eventually, the game

itself is destroyed. There are many reasons why this will happen, and

this claim will be supported by the viewpoints of all involved,

players, owners, and fans. Many of the cold, hard facts related to

this salary increase will be shown, along with exactly what has caused

this exponential increase in pay.

While the outcry against the outrageous contracts that the players

receive only recently become national news, the anger towards the

players for this dates back to the beginning of the game. However,

since the creation of free agency in 1976, the increase in pay has

become out of control. In order to see this, one only has to look at

the first two years of free agency, where salaries doubled (Bodley,

2000, par. 17). Additionally, the average salary is currently forty

times higher than it was in 1976 (Fisher & Heller, 2001, par. 4).

Baseball was the first sport to have free agency, and as it currently

stands, the last to control it. All other major sports, basketball,

football, and hockey, have plans in place in order to keep a check on

salaries. As a result, they are not facing the crisis that Major

League Baseball will soon have to deal with. These sports all have a

form of a salary cap or some revenue sharing between the small and

large market teams. Baseball's one attempt at this, a luxury tax for

teams with high payrolls, has done nothing to curb the extreme growth

of salaries.

It is also interesting to examine the roots of free agency, which in

the beginning was a good idea. In December 1975, Peter Seitz, at the

time baseball's arbitrator supported a grievance that two players had

filed (Chass, 2000, par. 4). He ruled that when a player's contract

to a team expired, the player was free to choose from all interested

teams. In theory, this is a good idea that is fair for players. They

weren't property of their original teams after contracts expired and

were free to pursue other options, just as in the same way a

businessman could look for a new job. However, there was no system in

place to stop a bidding war between teams if the money was available.

It also failed to take in to account the human ego. If a player sees

a person with similar statistics getting paid more, then that player

will demand the same amount of money, and this cycle continues

endlessly.

Salary arbitration is another cause of the salary inflation, which on

average has resulted in a 100% increase of the average salary in

recent years (Chass, 2001, par. 18). In short, salary arbitration

occurs when a player and a team renegotiate the contract with a

neutral third party officiating. If a player has a good season, and

feels that he is getting underpaid, he can file for arbitration.

Players win most of these cases, all they have to do is find someone

with comparable statistics who is getting paid more, and the

arbitrator in most cases will rule in his favor.

As it stands, teams in large markets, such as New York or Los Angeles

have an extreme advantage over teams in small markets, such as Kansas

City or Pittsburgh. An example of this can be seen in the 1997 season

where the teams with the five highest payrolls all made the playoffs.

In that season, the Florida Marlins were one of those teams; and after

that season, the owner, Wayne Huizinga, sold off all of his high

priced players because he couldn't afford it (Fuhr, 1999, par. 13).

Essentially, in baseball, as in the rest of the world, "you get what

you pay for." Teams that can't afford high priced talent will, year

in and year out finish at the bottom of the standings. As things

stand now, the fifteen smallest market teams should just become farm

clubs for the rest of the league. As soon as a player has a big

season, he is demanding outrageous money, which his team can't afford

to pay, so the