MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL SALARIES: 2011 MLB SALARIES BY TEAM *
| TEAM | TOTAL PAYROLL | AVG SALARY | MEDIAN | STD DEV |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| New York Yankees | $ 202,689,028 | $ 6,756,300 | $ 2,100,000 | $ 8,468,058 |
| Philadelphia Phils | $ 172,976,379 | $ 5,765,879 | $ 2,625,000 | $ 6,227,550 |
| Boston Red Sox | $ 161,762,475 | $ 5,991,202 | $ 5,500,000 | $ 5,576,432 |
| LA Angels | $ 138,543,166 | $ 4,469,134 | $ 2,000,000 | $ 6,048,494 |
| Chicago White Sox | $ 127,789,000 | $ 4,732,925 | $ 2,750,000 | $ 4,810,687 |
| Chicago Cubs | $ 125,047,329 | $ 5,001,893 | $ 1,600,000 | $ 6,194,469 |
| New York Mets | $ 118,847,309 | $ 4,401,752 | $ 900,000 | $ 6,693,551 |
| SF Giants | $ 118,198,333 | $ 4,377,716 | $ 2,200,000 | $ 4,877,657 |
| Minnesota Twins | $ 112,737,000 | $ 4,509,480 | $ 3,000,000 | $ 5,536,653 |
| Detroit Tigers | $ 105,700,231 | $ 3,914,823 | $ 1,300,000 | $ 5,259,443 |
| St. Louis Cardinals | $ 105,433,572 | $ 3,904,947 | $ 1,000,000 | $ 5,027,807 |
| LA Dodgers | $ 104,188,999 | $ 3,472,966 | $ 2,142,838 | $ 3,631,806 |
| Texas Rangers | $ 92,299,264 | $ 3,182,733 | $ 1,251,000 | $ 4,027,146 |
| Colorado Rockies | $ 88,148,071 | $ 3,390,310 | $ 2,318,750 | $ 4,398,021 |
| Atlanta Braves | $ 87,002,692 | $ 3,346,257 | $ 1,275,000 | $ 4,279,462 |
| Seattle Mariners | $ 86,524,600 | $ 2,884,153 | $ 825,000 | $ 4,414,418 |
| Milwaukee Brewers | $ 85,497,333 | $ 2,849,911 | $ 1,050,000 | $ 3,869,134 |
| Baltimore Orioles | $ 85,304,038 | $ 3,280,924 | $ 1,425,000 | $ 3,237,465 |
| Cincinnati Reds | $ 75,947,134 | $ 2,531,571 | $ 825,000 | $ 3,357,823 |
| Houston Astros | $ 70,694,000 | $ 2,437,724 | $ 467,000 | $ 3,960,818 |
| Oakland Athletics | $ 66,536,500 | $ 2,376,303 | $ 1,400,000 | $ 2,073,296 |
| Washington Nats | $ 63,856,928 | $ 2,201,963 | $ 1,050,000 | $ 2,783,056 |
| Toronto Blue Jays | $ 62,567,800 | $ 2,018,316 | $ 1,200,000 | $ 1,906,416 |
| Florida Marlins | $ 56,944,000 | $ 2,190,153 | $ 545,000 | $ 2,877,071 |
| Arizona D Backs | $ 53,639,833 | $ 1,986,660 | $ 1,000,000 | $ 1,854,261 |
| Cleveland Indians | $ 49,190,566 | $ 1,639,685 | $ 484,200 | $ 2,763,453 |
| San Diego Padres | $ 45,869,140 | $ 1,479,649 | $ 468,800 | $ 1,858,830 |
| Pittsburgh Pirates | $ 45,047,000 | $ 1,553,344 | $ 450,000 | $ 1,880,199 |
| Tampa Bay Rays | $ 41,053,571 | $ 1,578,983 | $ 907,750 | $ 1,570,206 |
| Kansas City Royals | $ 36,126,000 | $ 1,338,000 | $ 850,000 | $ 1,143,503 |
* The above information is available through the USA Today Database oF comparative same industry salaries and does not reflect the recent new uber-dollar contracts for 2012 and beyond to free agents like Albert Pujols and Jose Reyes.
The featured payroll graph for Major League Baseball needs no honest comment from me. If it did, what could I say? I didn’t grow up with those kind of dollars in my daily state of mind nor did I lead a life of gold chains, fast cars, and enough green paper to furnish my house with all the federal reserve note toilet paper I could possibly require.
As East End kids in Houston, we played sandlot ball with a curious combination of economy, loyalty, and wildly passionate love for the game. A taped together baseball thrown and batted around all day by nine guys who all played as Pecan Park Eagles was good enough for us. We didn’t play with the thought that a really good game might earn us a chance to move over to another sandlot team that owned a better baseball, a club that might even spring for a free coke for us late in the day.
We were who we were. Dedicated to winning. Playing for the place that was our home turf. Deflated by the very thought of defeat. Joyous as the image of Roy Hobbs in “The Natural” when we won, but without the exploding sparks of runaway electricity. We lived that image long before it ever hit the pages of a book or screamed at us older men (by then) from the movie theater screen.
Heck. We didn’t just precede Roy Hobbs. We invented him. In each of our minds, hearts, and souls, we were him.
At the end of the day, when the baseball quest was won without a betrayal of loyalty, Roy Hobbs went home to the heartland pastures of middle America to play catch with his newly discovered adolescent son in the most bucolic scene ever written into a movie. He didn’t sign a contract that would carry him on a geriatric track into the twilight under barrels of riches provided by the Los Angeles Angels. He went home to family. He went home to love because that was the discovered path of Roy Hobbs’s loyalty.
Had Roy Hobbs been Albert Pujols, he would still be playing first base for the St. Louis Cardinals in 2012 and keeping alive the heating up debate on the identity of the greatest Cardinal of all time? Stan Musial or Albert Pujols?
The jury on that one is now in. It was never close anyway, but now its certain. As the greatest Cardinal of all time, 90-year old Stan “The Man” Musial is richer in the stuff that determines true wealth than the great player Albert Pujols ever can hope to be. Longer live Stan Musial. He truly is the man.
Lately I’ve needed a few reminders in contemporary sports to remind me that winning at all financial cost is not the most important aim out there, not if it involves investing all your resources in the “rent a bum” method of talent procurement. Even if the “bums” are HOF-talented hobos, if they are just doing it for the money, I could not care less about what they accomplish.
Now I’m bracing for Kevin Sumlin eminently to leave his post as head football coach at the University of Houston for the better paying, more prestigious job as head coach for Texas A&M. If if he does, I don’t really blame him for doing so anymore than I blame Lance Berkman for signing with the Cardinals and then coming back to Houston in 2011 to beat the Astros in the head with his bat. Lance, at least, tried to come home, but the Astros wouldn’t let him. He didn’t fit into their new “pare-the-salaries-down-as-much-as-possible” policy dedication – and that turned out to be the break of Berkman’s career. Today he has a World Series championship ring to show for that door-closing by the Astros.
Maybe I’m just a member of the aging, fading away minority that places too much emphasis on that early sandlot dedication to winning with a level of integrity and loyalty to a common cause that no longer seems to exist in large quantities anywhere in contemporary American culture.
Perhaps, you will be able to look at the graph and find something that should make us want to get more involved in baseball. I don’t see it myself. Too much of my enjoyment is just still too wrapped up in the joy of the Japonica @ Myrtle streets sandlot and the old minor league memories of the Houston Buffs at Buff Stadium.
No matter what happens next, they can’t take that away from me.
Houston, Baseball, & Other Musings.
The Pecan Park Eagle 