Baseball Cultural Artifact

Baseball Cultural Artifact Essay

When a person looks at a baseball many thoughts can come to mind. Some think about their first major league ballgame they went to with their Dad. Others think about the good times they had playing baseball in the backyard with the neighbor kids. To me a baseball represents a lot more than that. To me, baseball represents money. Major League Baseball collects billions of dollars in revenues each year. While people think that the game is declining, I will tell you exactly why that isn’t the case. Baseball players on average make far more than basketball, football or even hockey players do. According to a CBS sports study the average major league baseball player’s salary is a whopping 3.3 million dollars. That is far more than the average in any of the other main American sports. Yankees third basemen Alex Rodriguez a few years ago, signed a very lucrative 10 year 300 million dollar contract which is still the highest paid contract given out by any professional franchise. When the Yankees signed A-Rod to that contract they believed he would bring fans to the ballpark just on his name alone. The Yankees believe that to make money you have to spend money. That has been a philosophy that the Yankees have used for a very long time and still use to this day.  Needless to say there is some big money to be made in professional baseball.

            The money that can be made in professional baseball will continue to grow as the game continues to grow across the globe. Major League baseball has done a terrific job in reaching out to other countries in the World Baseball Classic. In 2005 Major league baseball Commissioner Bud Selig founded the World Baseball Classic, an international baseball tournament to be played in March every three years. 16 different countries participate in the world baseball classic and Bud Selig is doing his best to expand that field even further. Japan won the first two classics in both 2006 and 2009. Since then, countries all over the world have been getting more involved in baseball. Just about every country wants to be considered the best at something important and the World Baseball Classic gave 16 different countries that opportunity. The classic was also a great opportunity for major league baseball to scout foreign talent to sign. Since the classic in 2009, three players from the Netherland team were signed and have played in the minors or major leagues. In 2010, 231 players on opening day rosters were born outside the United States. In 2010, 833 players started opening day so that equates to about 27 percent of all baseball players were born outside the United States.  

It is much cheaper for a franchise to hire a scout, send him to the Dominican Republic to go sign the next big star for a hundred thousand dollars then to go sign a big ticket free agent. Many smaller market teams have begun exploiting that system in recent years. Big time stars like Felix Hernandez were signed as “amateur free agents” out of countries like Venezuela for dirt cheap in the grand scheme of baseball. Hernandez has become a star starting pitcher in Seattle and recently signed a 5 year deal worth more than eighty million dollars to stay with the Seattle Mariners. In the long run, that is considered to be a great signing for the club not the player. Many players like Felix Hernandez have chosen long term security instead of waiting for free agency. That decision usually winds up working for the team. Fans in Seattle always sell out Safeco field whenever Hernandez is scheduled to pitch, making the deal worth it in the long run.

The World Baseball Classic served its purpose. It got other countries that don’t have baseball seasons interested in major league baseball. MLB.com sells subscriptions to mlb.tv to dozens of countries now and are currently facing substantial international success. There has been talk over the last few years on moving a team to a country outside of the United States or Canada. Places like Puerto Rico have been brought up in discussion and have been playing “test games” their recently. The World Baseball Classic has done a great job bringing American culture and the sport of baseball into other nations. It has brought an Olympics type atmosphere onto the Global stage.

            Most baseball players are committed to the Major Leagues because they have loved the game since they were little but there are the select few that play just for a paycheck. It is hard to find a job that pays better than being a star baseball player. The minimum salary for a player in the major leagues is 414,000. So even if you are the worst player in the major leagues you would still make nearly half a million dollars per year. Also with the new collective bargaining agreement in MLB players just coming into the league will now be entitled to 480,000 per year starting in 2012. Even members of a baseball front office make big money as well. A general manager for a major league team makes over a million dollars per year. Broadcasters and beat reporters for teams also make decent money as well. There is plenty of money to go around in the expanding game of baseball.

            I have always loved sports but baseball has always been very special to me. I played on little league teams ever since I was little and had always dreamed of working in major league baseball. I always thought I had an outside chance of getting drafted and working my way up but unfortunately that never happened. I got banged up in my junior and senior high school years and realized that it wasn’t going to happen so I had to adjust. I still would love to work in baseball either as a member of a front office, a reporter or even a broadcaster but I know for sure that I want to make a career working in professional baseball. I think it is good that baseball makes more money for its players and workers than other sports and is still considered America’s pastime despite the emergence of the NBA and the NFL. I find it very interesting that even though the players make a lot more money, baseball hasn’t had any lockout issue like basketball and football have been going through. Baseball has always had its own culture and has always been a game that people always have liked to remain the same. However baseball is changing dramatically, baseball is collecting as much revenue as ever since Commissioner Bud Selig put the Wild Card in 1999. The Wild Card put an extra playoff team in both the National and American Leagues’ which caused more fan bases to be interested in their team late in the season. Also since the World Baseball Classic, baseball has become much more popular all across the globe. It wouldn’t be surprising to see Major League baseball expand beyond the United States in the upcoming future.