FORTUNES FOR ATHLETICS

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XX, Issue 162, 28 June 1930, Page 1 (Supplement)

FORTUNES FOR ATHLETICS

Presidents Poor Beside Them PFTY years ago, when professional baseball came into being in the United States, good players were content with £l5O a year, and had to buy their own uniforms and pay for their own meals. Now, the best of them earn from £5,000 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 year. Babe Ruth,' 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 £5,000; the Babe, in one year, is reputed to have received £15,000 from the movies; £13,000 for a vaudeville tour; £2,000. for some newspaper articles on baseball; another £2,000 for the use of his name in,advertising; and as much besides as would have brought his income to nearly £40,000! This makes the. Presidential emoluments look modest. The baseball hero is said to have earned more out of sport than any other man in the world’s history, with Che possible exception of Jack Dempsey. That he will soOn catch Dempsey up, is fairly evident. As recently as 1914, the Babe’s salary was only £BOO a year. When ho was sold'to the Yankees in 1919 for about £25,000 —a Bum 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 £2,000. Baseballers . bitterly com.plained 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 Fates, however, were quick to console him. From £2,000, his salary rose to £5,000; and then, in 1922, he signed a five-year contract to play for £lO,OOO a year. • On the expiry of that, contract, the national idol went to New York, to see Colonel Jacob Ruppert, owner of the Yankees, and said that he would not accept a penny less than £20,000 to go ou playing with the team. The Colonel, however, “in an odour of cigar smoke and hops,” amiably beat the great bascballer down. The Babe emerged smiling, and said he was perfectly satisfied with the new arrangement.

Then, “with has wages raised from 52,000 to 70,000 dollars a year, a threoyear contract in his pocket, and a brass band waiting to greet him_ on his triumphant reunion with the Yankees at St. Petersborough, Florida, ho made a departure from New York in the character of a conqueror.” Colonel Ruppert, th; other party to the contract wit): 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 he is a man well-acquainted with the spending habits of baseballers. “Unless he is very unasunl among easy moneygetters,” remarked a New York journalist, .commenting on the Colonel’s hope, “be will do nothing of the.sort. Most.of them have an idea that it will never.rain on them.” There. arc 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 £lO,OOO a year, with a £2,000 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 the Giants’ second baseman, Rogers Hornsby, is paid £B,OOO 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” thev draw, it is argued the great, plavers are poorly rewarded.

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

“When Caruso sangjit the Metropolitan in the days of lus glory, ’ ’ says one commentator, “the house was sold out. For each one of Caruso’s appearances, ho drew between £6OO and £l,OOO. The Babe, who will bring infinitely mote business to the Stadium than Caruso brought.to the Metropolitah, draws about a tenth as much for each appearance as the famous tenor.

lie difference in the character of the twj performances has nothing to do with it. Each one was the best of its k’ 1.”

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.