In 1960, the folksy ballplayer Joe Garagiola authored one of the first baseball books that caught the nation’s eyes. The book was “Baseball Is A Funny Game,” and it propelled him to stardom. And as the book described it, baseball was both a fun game and a funny game.
In fact, it was probably very funny for the owners, because you can’t even tell what the average salary was for a ballplayer in 1960.
We do know that by 1965, the average ballplayer’s salary was $14,341. Fast forward to 1983, the last time the Orioles were in a World Series, that average salary — remember the MLBPA was born in the early ’70s — had ballooned to $289,194 with a minimum salary of $35,000.
Today, baseball isn’t such a funny game. The economics are astonishingly different than when Garagiola’s book came out.
In 2024, the average salary was $4.98 million and the minimum salary was $740,000. I am not begrudging MLB players for making what they can make. I merely bring it up to offer context on how dramatically teams’ payrolls have grown. What was once a funny game has gotten extremely serious for the folks who own these clubs.
David Rubenstein’s group paid $1.725 billion for the Orioles and the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network back in March. The group closed on the entirety of the deal in late May.
This is relevant right now because these are pretty down times for Orioles fans having gone 0-5 in playoff games the past two seasons. Those fans are starting to wonder what it’s going to take to get back to the World Series and win one for the first time since 1983. I was 31 years old and in my first season on the radio at the time. I am now 72 and feeling a wee bit desperate.
I bring this up because the light is at the end of the tunnel. Oh, you thought we were past that point. Not so fast.
Orioles GM Mike Elias held a news conference to put the 2024 season to bed on Thursday, Oct. 3, just one day after the Orioles were eliminated by the Kansas City Royals.
During that 35-minute presser, we saw a humbler Elias as he vowed to self-examine, reassess and just about any other phrase you might want to throw out there.
Essentially, Elias took it all on his shoulders and took the blame for what had just transpired. But is it really Elias’ fault? Dare I say that Elias got bitten by the vagaries of the deadly serious finances of operating a baseball team and was left without the real wherewithal to take advantage of the moment.
Remember, Elias has operated with payrolls in the bottom third of the league since taking over the club — topping out at about $103 million in 2024, according to Cot’s Baseball Contracts. It’s not clear how that may change under the leadership of Rubenstein. As such, I asked Elias the following:
“Mike, everybody in this room understands the constraints you were under financially with previous ownership. Are you convinced that you’ll have the financial clout to do what you want to do to [as you move] forward?”
Elias’ answer:
“Alluding to the new ownership group, these guys are great. This is what I think Baltimore has been waiting for. They’re smart. They’re business-savvy. They’re well-equipped for this. They’re going to be all-in to win. This is Major League Baseball and the situations are uneven between franchises. There are economics involved that are tricky. But this is a phenomenal ownership group. We’re all very excited about it. This has not been an easy task rebuilding this franchise with the backdrop of everything franchise-level that we’ve been dealing with. I think we’ve brought it to a very impressive point, but it’s time to get over a new hump.”
While it’s very healthy to re-examine and self-assess, Mike Elias is a sharp-minded and determined modern baseball executive. I think Elias is going to find with this new ownership group he’ll be able to focus on how to make the team better without the economic constraints that he faced at every turn for the first six years of his tenure in Baltimore.
Photo Credit: Kenya Allen/PressBox
Issue 289: October/November 2024
Originally published Oct. 16, 2024