Owners get tough, for a while

NEW YORK, NEW YORK - As the 1994 players' strike dragged into its fourth month the owners declared an impasse and imposed a salary cap TODAY in BASEBALL. The strike had abruptly ended the season in August, and caused the cancellation of the 1994 World Series for the first time since 1904.

As Leonard Koppett described in Koppett's Concise History of Major League Baseball, "distrust was the central issue." As far as the owners were concerned, "players had attained a position of bargaining power that inflated salaries beyond reason." The players' position was that the owners reneged on an earlier agreement, lied about MLBs finances and were simply trying to break the union.

The strike ended in April of 1995. As the following list indicates, average salaries went down, considerably for some teams.

Team...............................1994...........1995

Detroit Tigers..............$1,333,333....$225,000
New York Yankees.......$1,312,500....$531,000
Atlanta Braves.............$750,000.......$550,000
Chicago White Sox.......$750,000.......$775,000
Philadelphia Phillies......$750,000.......$250,000
Kansas City Royals.......$700,000.......$300,000
San Francisco Giants....$700,000........$325,000
Boston Red Sox............$650,000.......$282,500
Cleveland Indians........$650,000........$725,000
Baltimore Orioles.........$637,500........$387,500
Los Angeles Dodgers....$600,000.......$287,500
St. Louis Cardinals.......$587,500.......$300,000
Toronto Blue Jays........$530,000........$425,000
Cincinnati Reds............$500,000.......$600,000
Texas Rangers.............$475,000.......$270,000
Oakland Athletics..........$413,500.......$235,000
Los Angeles Angels.......$400,000.......$185,000
Milwaukee Brewers.......$350,000.......$158,000
Houston Astros.............$340,000.......$185,000
Chicago Cubs...............$300,000.......$240,000
New York Mets..............$290,000......$210,000
Seattle Mariners............$275,000......$275,000
Minnesota Twins............$262,500......$167,500
Florida Marlins..............$230,000.......$185,000
Colorado Rockies..........$224,000.......$350,000
Washington Nationals.....$200,000......$185,000
Pittsburgh Pirates..........$192,500......$225,000
San Diego Padres..........$167,500......$200,500

Salaries skyrocketed in the late '90s and early 2000s. In '94 just two teams had average player salaries in excess of one million dollars. Ten years later, ten teams had players earning an average of a million or more. And in 2008, 18 teams had salaries that averaged over $1 Million.

CONTRIBUTING SOURCES:
Leonard Koppett's Concise History of Major League Baseball, by Leonard Koppett, 1998
USA Today
World Series Results