Earnings VS Salary

[Calzone Lord]

Here's an interesting comparison of the salary of some great Hall Of Fame baseball players who played in 1920 VS Thoroughbred earnings that year.

Babe Ruth's salary for 1920: $20,000 (in his 7th MLB season, he hit 54 Home Runs and had a .376 batting average for the New York Yankees)

Ty Cobb's salary for 1920: $20,000 (In his 16th MLB season, and fresh off of 8 battling titles in his last 9 seasons, Ty Cobb's batting average dipped to just .334 in 1920)

"Shoeless" Joe Jackson salary for 1920: $8,000 (In his 13th MLB season, he posted a brilliant .382 Batting average. However, he was banned from baseball after the 1920 season. They accused him of taking part in a 1919 World Series fix.

Walter Johnson salary for 1920: $16,000 (in his 14th MLB season, and fresh off of 10 straight 20+ win seasons)


Meanwhile, 26 different North American thoroughbreds earned more than $20,000 that year. The chief earner, Man O' War, banked $166,140 and was lightly campaigned for his day.


10 years later, in 1930, Gallant Fox banked $308,275 in his 3-year-old season. Meanwhile, Lou Gehrig, in his 8th season, made $30,000 playing for the New York Yankees.

Sysonby banked $144,380 in his 3-year-old season of 1905.

Ty Cobb's MLB career started in 1905. It took Ty Cobb all the way until the very end of his 1919 season, to surpass with salary, the earnings of Sysonby's 1905 season.


Fast forward to 2013. According to Equibase, the leading earner in North America racing was Mucho Macho Man with $2,984,000

Alex Rodriguez $29 million owned the leading salary of 2013. Cliff Lee $25 million was 2nd. Johan Santana, Vernon Wells, and CC Sabathea all made over $24 million. Teixiera, Prince Fielder, and Mauer $23 million.


At one time, baseball and horse racing owned the day to day Sports coverage in the news, that's obviously not the case anymore. Football and basketball have emerged, while horse racing and boxing have fallen.

Television is surely a big reason why baseball revenue is what it is, and players salaries are what they've become. However, racing lost bookmaking and they poisoned the new pari-mutuel system by constantly raising takeout rates.

Competition with gambling was always there when horse racing was in it's prime. It just took the blame as horse racing starting to constantly choose to steadily make itself a less competitive gambling game in the 1930's through today.