Every player in tomorrow's probable starting lineup for the Red Sox-Yankees game will be someone making at least $1 million this year.

10:30 AM EDT on Sunday, April 10, 2005

BY DAVID McPHERSON
Journal Staff Writer

When the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees open the Fenway Park season tomorrow, there will be more than $300 million in baseball talent on the field and in the dugouts.

The top two teams in the American League last year start the season with the biggest payrolls in Major League Baseball once again, outspending many teams by more than a 2-to-1 ratio.

From top to bottom, every player in tomorrow's probable starting lineups will be somebody making at least $1 million this year. Just a handful of bench players on each team make less than $1 million.

The starters' pay ranges from Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez's $25.7 million salary to the $1.5 million salary of Sox backup catcher Doug Mirabelli, likely to be in the lineup if knuckleballer Tim Wakefield starts as expected.

The total salary of the Yankees' probable starting lineup tomorrow is $125.4 million; the Red Sox total is $63.7 million, with starting catcher Jason Varitek and his $8 million salary on the bench.

Rodriguez, who can expect jeers from Sox fans still celebrating last year's World Series championship, is the highest-paid player in baseball this year.

In total, the Red Sox and Yankees start the baseball season with a combined payroll of $327.2 million, according to the Associated Press, which compiles baseball salary figures at the start of each season.

The team payrolls are based on the opening-day rosters of each team, plus players starting the season on the disabled list, such as Sox pitcher Curt Schilling, who will make $14.5 million this year.

The Yankees' opening-day payroll totaled $205.9 million, first in the major leagues, according to the Associated Press figures. Cash received from other teams in trades, however, trimmed the Yankees' expense to $199.77 million.

The Red Sox ranked second in total payroll at $121.3 million, with left fielder Manny Ramirez leading the team at $19.8 million. Ramirez is the third-highest ball player in the majors behind Rodriguez and San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds ($22 million). Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter comes in fourth at $19.6 million.

The New York Mets -- with their winter signings of Pedro Martinez and Carlos Beltran -- rank third at $104.8 million. The Philadelphia Phillies are fourth at $95.3 million, followed by the Los Angeles Angels at $95 million, according to the Associated Press figures.

The average player salary in Major League Baseball this year is $2.63 million, 5.9 percent higher than the year before, when the figure actually dropped for just the third time since 1969.

That $2.63 million average player salary is more than 70 times greater than the $37,430 the average Rhode Island worker earned in 2003, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Even the major leagues minimum of $316,000 is more than eight times greater than the average Rhode Island salary.

For the typical working stiff, the sky-high salaries of baseball players -- and other professional athletes -- begs a simple question: Why?

Why are baseball salaries so big compared with the average Joe or Mary?

Economists who study sports explain it comes down to supply and demand.

"It's fundamentally a reflection of two things: the revenue in the sport is enormous and that means the value for the talent of the players is enormous," said sports economist Raymond Sauer of Clemson University in South Carolina. "The teams compete both financially and on the field, and if you're going to be competitive you're going to compete for the best players."

Over the last couple decades, Sauer said, there has been "an explosion of media revenue into the game," particularly from television rights.

"Twenty-five years ago, it was a ticket-driven business; now it's a media-driven business," said Sauer, a Journal of Sports Economics editorial board member.

He believes the rate of growth that has more than doubled the average pay over the last nine years will not continue. That is because TV revenue growth is likely to weaken.

Andrew Zimbalist, an economist at Smith College in Northampton, Mass., who has written several books on the business of baseball, offered a similar explanation.

"On the demand side, you have to start with the fact baseball, and pro team sports in general, are enormously popular, and their popularity enables the team owners through television contracts and the sports facilities where they play to generate enormous sums of money," Zimbalist said.

"So baseball players generate enormous sums of money, in the same way a successful Hollywood movie generates a lot of money."

Baseball players and other professional athletes are like top entertainers, explained Zimbalist, coauthor of the just-released book National Pastime: How Americans Play Baseball and the Rest of the World Plays Soccer.

"Why does Julia Roberts get paid $20 million a film? And the reason is she is really popular, and people will pay to go see her," said Zimbalist.

On the supply side of equation, explain both Zimbalist and Sauer, is the fact that talented baseball players are extremely rare.

The major leagues features 750 of the best baseball players in the world, out of a world population of more than 6 billion, Zimbalist said.

"There's a very, very short supply of these players who play a game people are passionate about," Zimbalist said.

Sauer, the Clemson Univerity economist, added, "Great pitchers who can get out great hitters are incredibly scarce."

That is one reason tomorrow's scheduled Yankee starter, Mike Mussina, is the fifth-highest-paid player in baseball, with a $19 million salary this year. Mussina, in fact, is one of seven Yankees likely to start tonight who earn in excess of $10 million.

The others are Rodriguez, Jeter, designated hitter Jason Giambi, $13.4 million; centerfielder Bernie Williams, $12.4 million; rightfielder Gary Sheffield, $11.5 million; and catcher Jorge Posada, $11 million.

The rest of tomorrow's likely starting lineup for the Yankees: left fielder Hideki Matsui, $8 million; first baseman Tino Martinez, $2 million; and second baseman Tony Womack, $2 million.

The Red Sox likely lineup:

• Ramirez, $19.8 million;

• centerfielder Johnny Damon, $8.25 million;

• shortstop Edgar Renteria, $8 million;

• rightfielder Trot Nixon, $7.5 million;

• designated hitter David Ortiz, $5.25 million;

• Wakefield, $4.67 million;

• first baseman Kevin Millar, $3.5 million;

• second baseman Mark Belhorn, $2.75 million;

• third baseman Bill Mueller, $2.5 million;

• Mirabelli, $1.5 million.

Contact David McPherson at dmcpherson [at] projo.com