The Obama line: What’s it all about, Babe?

The Obama line: What’s it all about, Babe?

Posted on February 15th, 2009 by Clark DeLeon

We live in strange times, you and I. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer. Nothing is new that way. But the rich getting richer are doing so in almost unimaginable ways. And they’ve been doing it for so long that we don’t even question it anymore. In 1931 durng the brutal early months of the Great Depression, Babe Ruth was awarded an $80,000 contract by the New York Yankees. Ruth, who would retire four years later with a lifetime batting average of .342, on top of the all the home runs and all the strike outs, was asked by a reporter if the Babe deserved to be paid an annual salary worth $5,000 more than the President of the United States. Famously, the Bambino answered, “I had a better year than he did.”

Having a better year than Herbert Hoover in 1931 was the presidential equivalent of having a better year than (4-8) Phillies pitcher Adam Eaton in 2008. The difference is Hoover got voted out of office and Eaton got paid almost $8 million last year — 100 times what Babe Ruth was paid in 1931 and 20 times what Barack Obama will earn as President in 2009. As obscene as everything that went on on Wall Street that has collapsed before our eyes because of the greed that inspired it, we live in a Lala Land when it comes to what we pay professional athletes compared to, for instance, the president of the United States. Forget about you and me. What’s a President Obama worth? How much should he or any president get paid compared to an average ballplayer in any one of the major league sports?

The median or average salary of a Major League Baseball player is four times what the president makes, $400,000 a year. The only MLB club that pays its average players less, according to the USA Today database, is the Florida Marlins at $395,000. The average — the union scale — player in the NBA earns seven times more than the president. The NFL is modest by comparison. The average player in the National Football League makes two to three times what the president makes, which is not bad pay for offensive linemen. I was surprised to see that the average NHL player makes more than three times as much as the president. Let’s call it the Obama Line.

Let’s start keeping track of anyone’s salary — athletes, entertainers or bankers — as it compares to the annual salary of the President of the United States. If someone is being paid 700 points above the Obama Line, he’d better have a very good year.