Sports, Money and the Plunge of America's Pastime

During the 1950s, baseball was embraced throughout the United States as the general public referred to the sport as "America's pastime." Players like Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle, Sandy Koufax and Willie Mays entertained many men and women with their outstanding performance and love for the game.

However, over the last decade, many baseball players are no longer playing the game with this same love and charisma, but instead, are partaking in the game for mercenary reasons.

As a result, the power of the dollar has damaged the reputation of major league baseball. Several incidents involving the players have caused many fans and supporters to lose their interest and respect for the game. Attendances have dropped at major league games, and baseball, once "America's pastime," is now one of the most controversial sports in today's society.

There are several actions that have lead to this change in major league baseball's reputation: a dramatic increase in salaries, player and umpire strikes, performance-enhancement drugs, conflicts of free agency and the lack of a salary cap.

At the beginning of the 1990s, the major increase in baseball players' salaries immensely changed baseball. At this time, wealthy team owners began to slowly increase their players' salaries. This rise in salaries soon exploded into multi-million dollar contracts, and these owners continued to pour millions of dollars out of their pockets in order to satisfy their players' greed.

Consequently, each season, bigger salaries are offered to baseball stars in order to try to bring each owner's team to the World Series.

For example, in 2001, Alex Rodriguez signed a 256 million dollar contract for twelve years (21.3 million dollars per year) with the Texas Rangers. This contract surpassed any other player's salary, setting a new record for the largest annual salary.

Although most baseball players do not receive contracts to this extreme, on average, baseball players today make around 3-4 million dollars every year. In the 1950s, baseball players were more concerned with winning the World Series than they were with receiving a higher salary.