Baseballminutia

In 1967 the combined payroll of the entire Major Leagues was 9.5 million dollars.

500 K more than Brian Giles made last year, 1.5 million more than Austin Kearns, twenty years ago in 1988 the highest paid player was Gary Carter and he made $ 2,360,714, last year A-Rod made 33 MILLION dollars and the Yankees median salary was 5.2 million dollars.

Boggles the mind if you think too much about it, something will have to burst that bubble someday, it’s the nature of the market. Unfettered growth is an illusion in the baseball world.

One gripe you hear year in and year out is that baseball is getting too commercial, the Reds recent ownership has increased the teams marketing efforts more so then the last ownership group, this includes reintroducing vintage brands that extend merchandising (Hi Mr. Redlegs) or packaging soda pop sales with cheerleading dance troupes that were formerly a NBA side show in most cities. One of the key movements in the MLB’s marketing push has been to increase signage at the ballpark, more often this is the sort of advertising that gets the baseball traditionalist up in arms, and that caused an issue 2 years ago when the Cubs of all the teams were going to bow to the will of the advertiser and place ads on the walls of Wrigley Field.

The HORROR!!!!!!

What a load, did we forget the name of the park itself?

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Everyone knows of Jackie Robinson, many folks went out their way to make sure that Larry Doby was mentioned as well this past week as the honoring of Robinsons legacy came to its yearly day on the baseball calendar
Also occurring that season was a sudden surge in the games popularity, every turnstile in the game was turning at a healthy click, except one place… St. Louis, but only when the Browns were the home team. In early July Bill Veeck the games biggest promoter followed Branch Rickey’s move and signed Larry Doby, to many it seems that the rest of the season involving breaking the color line stops there .

But they are wrong, they are missing a big story, one that shows the other side Robinson saga, one fraught with mis aimed plans and poor decisions. One that involves the third and fourth black ballplayers in MLB, one that involves the first black teammates, and the first black man to hit a home run in the American League.

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