Baseball player salaries break $2 billion barrier

NEW YORK -- Baseball salaries topped $2 billion for the first time this year, with Texas shortstop Alex Rodriguez atop the list at $22 million.

The New York Yankees led all clubs with a record payroll of nearly $126 million -- $92 million more than last-place Tampa Bay.

The figures are the result of a week-long study by The Associated Press of contracts for 849 players on opening-day rosters and disabled lists.

Players will earn $2.023 billion, up from $1.934 billion last season. Owners, however, did slow the increase during a troubled offseason in which baseball unsuccessfully tried to eliminate two teams.

The average salary of $2,383,235 was up 5.2 percent from last year. That was less than half of the 13.9 percent increase of 2001 and the smallest percentage jump since 1998.

While the average salary has increased 126-fold from 1967, when it was $19,000, the Consumer Price Index has gone up only five-fold since then. And while baseball players average $13,000 a day during the season, the average annual household income in the United States is $57,045, according to latest figures from Census Bureau. That's about four days' average pay for someone who wields a bat and wears a glove.

Still, baseball's average is almost half the $4.2 million in the NBA last season, according to figures compiled by the league. The NHL's average was $1.43 million last season and the NFL's average was $1.1 million, according to their unions.

Just behind Rodriguez are Toronto first baseman Carlos Delgado ($19.4 million), Los Angeles pitcher Kevin Brown ($15.7 million) and Boston outfielder Manny Ramirez ($15.4 million). Barry Bonds, who hit a record 73 homers for San Francisco, is tied for fifth with the Chicago Cubs' Sammy Sosa at $15 million.

Figures include salaries and prorated shares of signing bonuses and other guaranteed income, and for some players parts of salaries deferred without interest are discounted to present-day value.

With high-revenue teams adding stars, the gap between rich and poor increased for the seventh straight season since the 1994-95 strike.

The Yankees were No. 1 for the fourth straight season and sixth time in seven years at $125.9 million. Boston was second at $108.4 million, followed by Texas at $105.3 million and Arizona, which ended the Yankees' run of three straight World Series titles, at $102.8 million.

The Devil Rays were last at $34.4 million, and just above were Montreal ($38.7 million), Oakland ($39.7 million) and Minnesota ($40.2 million).

"It's always going to be a challenge until we get the payroll up to compete with those other teams," Tampa Bay general manager Chuck LaMar said. "If you continually sign young players and develop players through your system, it's truly the only way you can compete with teams with a higher payroll."

While the Yankees have 14 players at $4 million or higher, the team says it spends within its means and points to its almost complete lack of deferred salaries. New York estimates it will have an actual cash outlay of about $119 million this year and revenue of more than $240 million.

In contrast, the Diamondbacks have deferred $51.75 million of this year's salaries, more than half their payroll.

Baseball commissioner Bud Selig says the difference between top and bottom is part of the reason the sport needs a new economic system, saying the low-revenue teams can't complete.

"Obviously, there are some clubs that have been very cautious in their spending," he said.

Reflecting the concentration of wealth among the top stars, the number of millionaires dropped from 425 to 413. But players at $2 million or more increased from 312 to 321, and those at $14 million and higher went from two to eight.

The median salary -- the point at which an equal amount of players are above and below -- dropped to $900,000 from $975,000.

Selig has proposed slowing salary growth with a luxury tax on high-payroll teams and a vast increase in the sharing of locally generated revenues, proposals the union had been cool to accepting.

Union head Donald Fehr said the failed attempt to eliminate the Twins and Expos slowed the growth in salaries but the players had not yet estimated by how much.

"You didn't know what players were going to be available and under what conditions," he said. "It obviously has to affect people."

Rob Manfred, management's top labor lawyer, said a relatively weak free-agent class and events outside baseball contributed to a slowing.

"It was a unique offseason, given Sept. 11 and the economy," he said.