Clarion Content

A couple of interesting baseball salary notes from legendary football writer Peter King. "The infield of the New York Yankees (Mark Teixeira, Robinson Cano, Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez) makes more money than the 53 players on the Royals and Rays."

Wow!

And how about this one, "Peter Bourjos plays center field for the Angels. Vernon Wells plays left... After four games, Vernon Wells has made more money ($651,234) than Bourjos will make for the full season ($414,000)."

These statistics do answer a critique of basketball salaries made by Clarion Content fave, Bill Simmons. Simmons pointing out that the NBA's owners have made their own bed economically by over-paying fringe and mid-level players says

"In Hollywood, you don't pay "character actors" like Mike Miller or Travis Outlaw $30-35 million to appear in your next five movies. Why? Because it's bad business!!! Because it would be irresponsible! We're headed toward a lockout because NBA "character actors" should be paid like what they are -- character actors -- and because the dopey owners need to be saved from themselves. It's a broken system. Luke Walton and Ron Artest should not be making half as much combined as Kobe Bryant. Brandon Bass, J.J. Redick and Chris Duhon should not be making as much combined as Dwight Howard. If NBA owners ran Hollywood, the creepy uncle from "Winter's Bone" would be enjoying Year 1 of a six-year, $58 million movie deal."

Baseball, as one can tell from Peter King's salary statistics, has at least figured this one out.

Labels: baseball, NBA, sports, Sports Economics