Cards set record with Series share

NAPLES, Fla. -- The St. Louis Cardinals cashed in at the World Series, earning more money than any other team in history.

St. Louis split $20.02 million for beating the Detroit Tigers. A full share of that was worth $362,173, the commissioner's office said Thursday. That was nearly $40,000 more than what White Sox players received last year.

Teams are allowed to divide the shares as they see fit. The Cardinals gave 48 full shares, 7.133 partial shares and 16 cash awards.

When the Cardinals won their previous title, in 1982, a full share was worth $43,280.

A full share for the Tigers was worth $291,668, more than $50,000 higher than the previous mark for a losing team. The 2000 New York Mets held that mark.

Major League Baseball increased the top price of regular box seats for the World Series from $185 last year to $250 this season. The players' pool increased from $40.8 million last year to a record $55.6 million.

The pool includes 60 percent of ticket money from the first four scheduled games of the World Series, the first four scheduled games of each league championship series and the first three contests of each division series.

Full shares for the league championship series losers came to $140,625 for the Oakland Athletics and $124,430 for the New York Mets.

Among first-round losers, full shares were worth $37,539 for Minnesota, $28,598 for the New York Yankees, $27,340 for San Diego and $27,035 for the Los Angeles Dodgers. For second-place teams that didn't make the playoffs, full shares were worth $11,830 for Toronto, $10,910 for Philadelphia, $10,286 for Houston and $10,155 for the Los Angeles Angels.