>One of the many things baseball today has in common with baseball 35 years ago is the number of people saying it's much worse than it was 35 years ago.
>
>35 years ago people were making the same comments about how hard they played the game 35 years ago compared to now.
>
>35 years ago people were making the same comments about how escalating salaries were ruining the game because 35 years ago they played for the love of the game rather than the money.
>
>
http://users.commkey.net/fussichen/dtl003.htm>
>35 years ago people were commenting about how the teams kept moving from one city to another. For example, between 1965 and 1972
>
> 1. The KC A's move to Oakland (1968)
> 2. The Milwaukee Braves move to Atlanta (1966)
> 3. The Washington Senators become the Texas Rangers. (1969) Remember, these were not the original Senators but an expansion team created when the original Senators became the Minnesota Twins in 1961
>
>You can go back to the 50's and find
>
> 1. The Brooklyn Dodgers moving to Los Angeles
> 2. The NY Giants moving to SF
> 3. The St. Louis Browns moving to Baltimore
> 4. The Boston Braves moving to Milwaukee
> 5. The Philly A's moving to KC
>
>Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose
Rich;
I have to agree that there were some outstanding players say 70 years ago as well as throughout the history of baseball. The dead ball era is interesting as well as so many other changes.
I know I live in the past. A few things have changed about baseball such as players salaries. For example in 1967 the average baseball player made $19,000 a year, and in 1997 the average was $1.3 million.
http://www.baseball1.com/bb-data/bbd-mas.htmlThe average salary of a New York Yankee player this year is over $5 million for the season.
http://asp.usatoday.com/sports/baseball/salaries/mediansalaries.aspx?year=2005When I was a kid it cost twenty cents to see a game. When the Giants were at Candlestick it cost me less than $20 to buy tickets for my son and myself. Today the average cost of a ticket to see the Giants at SBC Park is about $50. Add two hot dogs, two soft drinks, parking and you have spent nearly $175. SBC does not have as many seats as Candlestick so they have to charge more to pay the bills.
It costs a good deal of money to pay the players salaries of today. Did you happen to see the Ken Burns special on PBS about Baseball? I think I saw it about ten years ago. That was interesting!
http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/baseball/One of Ken Burns points was that until about 1975 players salaries were about five times greater than the average working man's income. Today the proportion is very different as is the game.
Tom
