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Show Salaries of Athletes THEY were talking about the money a professional athlete could make, and how much most of these athletes were worth. In the first place, among eight or ten old-time writers, in the discussion discus-sion it was generally voted that the ring business was the most lopsid-. ed. This means that a few were far overpaid and the others were far underpaid. For example, Joe Louis has bowled over close to four million dollars for his 62 fights. Now four million dollars is quite a chunk more than any other contestant could collect from any other game. Above that we'll say Louis picked up 350 of t thousand dollars for his last fight. Babe Ruth That is about the pay that 10 of the highest-paid ballplayers would get for an entire season of 154 games. But after all, the fight champion cham-pion collects because he can draw. When two ball clubs meet there may be 50 ball players engaged. When fighters meet, only two in the main event get any real money, and one of these gets most of it. After all, a contestant con-testant is entitled to get his part of the swag which his drawing power can earn. Babe Ruth was paid as high as $80,000 a year. He was actually worth more than double this amount to his team, the league and baseball base-ball in general. It would be hard to measure how much he actually earned. I've seen home teams drawing 1,500 a game jump to 33,-000 33,-000 when the Babe came along. Feit; Get But, while Jack Dempsey, Louis and Gene Tunney have all collected huge amounts, and a few others have picked up important checks from the fight game, the vast majority ma-jority get little except queer noises in their skulls. It's a tough game, it you make good. It's a thousand times tougher when you don't. Commissioner Eddie Eagen tells me there are more boxers than one might think who are putting away from $50,000 to $60,000 a year. This is amazing amaz-ing when you figrure the cut the manager and his helpers get. The fight game is good only to the few. For the others it is largely large-ly a matter of scrambled brains. It is not a profession to be recommended recom-mended too highly to the youth of the land. Baseball and football are the two best average paying games, especially espe-cially in the higher circuits. Oddly enough, more than a few young stars who dabble in both sports have to make certain drastic decisions. Alvin Dark of the Braves was offered of-fered more to play football than he gets playing baseball. Dark picked baseball and the- Braves. Charley Trippi tried out both games, and this season the ex-Georgia ex-Georgia star decided to give all his time to the Chicago Cardinals, leaving baseball flat. He found the combination too much to handle. Chuck Conerly of Mississippi and Bobby Layne of Texas were two baseball stars. Both had bright baseball futures. Both picked football foot-ball with the high guarantees now offered. Years ago, Walter Hagen could have been a noted big league star one of the greatest in the game. Hagen picked golf and then proceeded pro-ceeded to roll up a million dollars in a few years which the carefree Haig promptly spent. Joe Gordon was an Oregon great at football before he switched entirely en-tirely to baseball. Torgerson of the Braves was another football star who picked baseball for a moneymaker. money-maker. There are many others I could mention. Ballplayers Last Longer One thing to be remembered is that one lasts longer, on a general average, at baseball than he does at football. The wear and tear isn't so expensive. A big league ballplayer with any particular merit should be good for 12 or 14 years. Few football players last that long. The Mel Heins, Sammy Baughs and Sid Luckmans are scarce. Bob Feller leads both leagues in the way of a pay check at something some-thing like $85,000 a year, which, so far this dizzy year, Rapid Robert hasn't come close to earning. Ted Williams is next, and Joe Di-Maggio Di-Maggio is third. They get from $60,-000 $60,-000 to $75,000 and are earning it every ev-ery day as two of the leading stars. Stan Musial gets nothing like these amounts, although the Cardinal brilliant bril-liant is worth as much as any man in the game. There will be a big reshifting of values next year up and down. Musial is drawing something like $32,000 this season, but at his present pres-ent pace if he isn't a $60,000 entry they have no ballplayers in the National Na-tional league. |