Show real LL quiz clubs interested in baseball are hereby called to order we are able to offer them a few interesting and im important queries that even more ball players cant answer they came to us from the active brain of ford frick president of the national league here they are 1 how long is the playing career of the average big league ball player 2 what wha t Is the average amount ol of money big league ball players playe rs make in their playing time 11 3 what is the average lenth length ot of time it takes to develop 1 a big I 1 leaguer 1 starting from his grantland granted rice first day in the minors it has remained for ford frick one of the best officials baseball ever knew to supply the correct answers it was no easy job since president frick had to look back through the lifetime careers of a long long list I 1 happened to be with biu bill dickey joe gordon and red rolfe when ford put on his quiz and none of us came within brassie distance of hitting the target average playing lifetime there have been leaguers who knew only one year ot of service frick said there have been others such as ty cobb pop anson and jack quinn who hung on tor r nearly 25 years but in adding up all the figures I 1 discovered the average big league players career Is just wt years those who passed the 20 year mark include cobb anson wagner ruth lajoie quinn speaker E cy young and a few more but the average span is 8 aa seasons this was a trifle astonishing to dickey gordon and rolfe who had guessed from four to six years question no 2 is how much do ball players collect on an average through their playing careers mr frick had the answer to this the amount he said is this would mean around a year salaries have ranged from to babe ruths and it was babe ruth who lifted the average far above old levels this mark is well above what it was 10 years ago it is far above what it was 20 years ago holdouts foldouts Hol douts of 1910 I 1 recall over 30 years ago when larry lajoie and ed delehanty two of the greatest of all time were offered contracts for 2500 and held out for and they were both around the class the largest salary christy mathewson ever drew was when he was winning from 33 to 33 35 games a year the highest paid men today include hank greenberg bob feller buck newsom and joe dimaggio their average e is above until ford frick dug up the general average I 1 doubt that anyone ever guessed that an 8 year bau ball player would collect for his work the highest payrolls today belong to the yankees tigers and red sox all three have such headliners bead head liners as greenberg dimaggio newsom dickey gehringer foxx grove williams ruffing and gordon who are all in the higher brackets one queer feature frick said is that most of the higher salaries come in a ball players tenth or eleventh season when he has become a star there is a report out that the only ball player who was ever sent a blank contract and told to write in his I 1 own figures was bob grove of the red sox whereupon grove sent the unsigned contract back to tom yawkey with the request 1 that yawkey do the writing carl hubbell was sent the same type of contract someone said aad and lefty grove carl wrote in less than the club expected to pay third question how long does it take to turn a minor leaguer into a major leaguer again speaking in terms of the average after a thorough check I 1 find it takes just ai 3 years for a all I 1 except the pitchers it takes th the e pitchers wt years to b be 4 B ready tor for big league bats president ford frick said 1 I am taking the time from the first minor league start until the player is ready for a big league job many of course have come along in a year or two A few have broken in directly from college play or sandlot play others have taken six or seven y years ears or even longer before they arrived with the right equipment but a thorough search and study ot of the records shows that a minor leaguer usually needs 34 years training before he can hold down at a major league job and keep it tor for a while he be added |