FORTUNES FOR ATHLETES

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 144, 21 June 1930, Page 20

FORTUNES FOR ATHLETES

PRESIDENTS POOR BESIDE., THEM

Fifty years, ago, when professional baseball came into being in the United States, good players were content with ' & 150 a year, and had to buy their own uniforms and pay for their own meals. Now, the best ;of them earn from £5000 to £14,000 a year, by way of salary, and make small fortunes from the movies as well, says the "Adelaide. Begister,*.' ■ >~;. >:. The President of the • United States has a salary of £15,000 a yean Babe Buth,;: America's favourite baseball "swatter," signed a three years' contract in 1927 , which . provided ■ for a salary of £14,000 a year. The, President has an annual travelling allowance of £5000; the Babe, in one year, is reputed to have received £15,000 from the. movies; £ 13,000 for a vaudeville tour; £2000 for some newspaper articles on baseball; another £2000 for the use of his name in advertising; and as much besides as would have brought his income to nearly £40,0001 This make the Presidential emoluments look modest. ■ ■ ■■ • .

The baseball horo is said to have earned more out of sport than any other man in the world's history, with the possible exception of Jack Dempsey. . That ho will soon catch Dempsey up, is fairly evident, . As .recently as 1914, the Babe's salary was only £800 a year. When he was sold to the Yankees in 1919 for about £25,000 —a sum which, in accordance. with the custom'relating to such transactions, went into the pockets of the proprietors of his former team—his salary was raised to £2000. Baseballers bitterly, complain that they do not share in the profits, when they are; sold out of one. team into another,, and the Babe was probably rather sore about this £25,000 -that he did not get.

The Pates, however, were quick to console him. From £2000, his salary rose to £5000; and then, in 1922, ho signed a five-year contract to play for £10,000 a year.

. On the expiry of that contract, the national idol went to New 'York, to see Colonel Jacob Euppert, owner of the Yankees, and said that he would not accept a penny less than £20,000 to go on playing with the team. The Colonel, however, "in an odour of cigar smoke and hops," amiably beat the great baseballer down. The Babe emerged smiling, and said he was perfectly satisfied with the new arrangement. '... . ',': .■:■.'-,

Then, "with his wages raised from 52,000 to 70,000 dollars a year, .a

three;year contract1 in Ms pocket, and a brass band waiting.to greet him on his triumphant .reunion with • the Yankees at ,St. Petersburg,' FJorida, he made a departure from New York in the character of a conqueror. "<■"■

Colonel Kuppert, the other party to the contract with George Herman Ruth, remarked with a sigh, as he finished his cigar, "I hope that the Babe will put away something for a rainy day." ■• ...,.'..■• : ■ ■

The Colonel sighed because ho isa man well-acquainted with the spendthrift habits of baseballers. "Unless he is very unusual among easy moneygetters," remarked a New York journalist, commenting on the Colonel's hope, "he will do nothing of the sort. Most of them have an idea that it will never rain on them." ' •

There are plenty of other baseballers with incomes which at least rival that of the President of the United States. There is Ty Cobb, for example; stalwart of a Philadelphia team, who was recently reported to have signed' on for £10,000 a year, with a £2000 bonus, and. something besides in the event of his team being victorious; The manager of the New York Giants draws a salary of £13,000 a year, and and' the Giants' second baseman^ Rogers Hornsby, is paid £8000 a season. '

The fact is that organised baseball in America; makes more money than it knows what.to do with; and, proportionately to the worth of the "gates" they draw, it is argued, the great players are poorly rewarded.

Euth will possibly . play in as many as 154 games in a season, and'this works out, for him, at less than £100 a game. The added value of the gate which results from his appearance, is probably more than ten times as much as that. , ■ ■ . '

"When Caruso sang at the Metropolitan in the days of his glory," says one commentator, "the house was sold out. For each one of Caruso's appearances, ho draw between £600 and £1000. The Babe, who will bring infinitely more business to the Stadium than .Caruso brought to the Metropolitan, draws about a tenth as much for each appearance as the famous tenor. The difference in the character of the two performances has nothing to do with it. Each one was the best of its kind." .

In a monetary sense, what a thing is worth in this.world is, after all, exactly the sum that the highest bidder is prepared to pay for it.