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Hey, Bud, Let's Party!
2007-04-04 09:07
by Mike Carminati
It’s good to be the King.
— Mel Brooks as King Louis XVI (as in “Death to King Louieeee!”) in “History of the World, Pt. I”
 
It was disclosed yesterday that Bud Selig and a number of top MLB executives made eye-poppingly large salaries in the 2005season, according to the major’s tax return.  Apparently, that is public information (or the AP somehow got a copy).  It’s odd that we have never seen this sort of information made public before.
 
Anyway, Bud was in essence the 16th highest paid baseball employee in 2005:
 
Salary
Player
Team
 $26,000,000
Alex Rodriguez
New York Yankees
 $22,000,000
Barry Bonds
San Francisco Giants
 $22,000,000
Manny Ramirez
Boston Red Sox
 $19,600,000
Derek Jeter
New York Yankees
 $19,000,000
Mike Mussina
New York Yankees
 $18,000,000
Jeff Bagwell
Houston Astros
 $18,000,000
Roger Clemens
Houston Astros
 $17,000,000
Sammy Sosa
Baltimore Orioles
 $16,071,429
Mike Piazza
New York Mets
 $16,061,802
Chipper Jones
Atlanta Braves
 $16,000,000
Randy Johnson
New York Yankees
 $15,714,286
Kevin Brown
New York Yankees
 $15,125,000
Mike Hampton
Atlanta Braves
 $15,000,000
Chan Ho Park
Texas Rangers
 $14,500,000
Curt Schilling
Boston Red Sox
 $14,500,000
Bud Selig
Commissioner's Office Softball Team
 
But that’s just the tip of the iceberg (iceBud?).  The salaries for six other top officials were also disclosed, and let’s just say that none of them were making league minimum:
 
Salary
Player
Position
 $14,500,000
Bud Selig
Comissioner
 $  4,875,000
Bob DuPuy
COO
 $  1,920,000
Rob Manfred
Exec VP, Labor Relations
 $  1,300,000
John McHale Jr.
Exec VP, Administration
 $  1,245,000
Jonathan Mariner
Exec VP, Finance
 $     875,000
Sandy Alderson
Exec VP, Baseball Operations (until 6/05)
 $     543,583
Jimmie Lee Solomon
Exec VP, Baseball Operations (from 6/05)
 $25,258,583
Total
 
 $  3,608,369
Avg
 
 
Actually, the league minimum salary for 2005 was $316K, and the average salary for all MLB employees from Bud down to the lowliest secretary, sorry, “assistant”, was almost $335K:
 
Organization
Tot Payroll
Tot Employees
Avg Salary
% MLB avg
Baseball's Central Office
$77,300,000
231
$334,632.03
 
NFL
$41,500,000
839
$49,463.65
15%
NHL
$13,900,000.00
56
$248,214.29
74%
 
That’s almost seven times the NFL’s administrative average and a third more that the NHL’s over roughly the same period, though the NHL employed just a quarter the staff.
 
Look at it this way: the $3.6M average for the top MLB executives constituted the fifth highest average salary in baseball in 2005:
 
Tm
#players
 Payroll
Avg Salary
New York Yankees
26
 $208,306,817
 $     8,011,801
Boston Red Sox
28
 $123,505,125
 $     4,410,897
New York Mets
27
 $101,305,821
 $     3,752,067
Philadelphia Phillies
26
 $  95,522,000
 $     3,673,923
MLB Execs
7
 $  25,258,583
 $     3,608,369
Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
29
 $  94,867,822
 $     3,271,304
St. Louis Cardinals
26
 $  92,106,833
 $     3,542,571
San Francisco Giants
26
 $  90,199,500
 $     3,469,212
Seattle Mariners
32
 $  87,754,334
 $     2,742,323
Chicago Cubs
28
 $  87,032,933
 $     3,108,319
Atlanta Braves
25
 $  86,457,302
 $     3,458,292
 
It’s no wonder that we are hearing rumors that Heir Bud might not be retiring in 2009 as planned (Yeah, and Jay Leno is going to quit to give Conan his show, too).  That’s too large a chunk of change to be left on the table for a former used car salesman.
 
So for the first time, I am in agreement with Joe Sixpack when he opines that these guys are overpaid except I won’t be talking about the players.
Comments
2007-04-04 12:23:44
1.   rbj
Great, $14 million to screw me out of Extra Innings. It makes Pavano's last two years not look so bad, I at least got to watch the Yankees.

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