The List of highest paid baseball players reference article from the English Wikipedia on 24-Apr-2004 (provided by Fixed Reference: snapshots of Wikipedia from wikipedia.org)

List of highest paid baseball players

Annual Salary

The following chart reveals the evolution of the highest paid player in Major League Baseball.

YEAR - $ SALARY/YR - PLAYER            - TEAM/ORGANIZATION

1930       $80,000 - Babe Ruth 

1985 -  $2,130,300 - Mike Schmidt      - Philadelphia Phillies

1986 -  $2,800,000 - George Foster

1990 -  $3,200,000 - Robin Yount

1991 -  $3,800,000 - Darryl Strawberry - 

1992 -  $6,100,000 - Bobby Bonilla

1993 -  $6,200,000 - Bobby Bonilla

1994 -  $6,300,000 - Bobby Bonilla

1995 -  $9,237,500 - Cecil Fielder

1997 - $10,000,000 - Albert Belle

1998 - $14,936,667 - Gary Sheffield

2000 - $15,714,286 - Kevin Brown

2001 - $22,000,000 - Alex Rodriguez

- - - - - - - - - - - - - unconfirmed - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

YEAR - $ SALARY/YR - PLAYER            - TEAM/ORGANIZATION

1927       $70,000 - Babe Ruth 

1949      $100,000 - Ted Williams 

1961 -     $75,000 - Mickey Mantle

1966 -    $130,000 - Willie Mays 

1972      $200,000 - Hank Aaron 

1979 -             - Pete Rose 

1980 -  $1,000,000 - Nolan Ryan        - Houston Astros - 1st player to pass $1 million a yaer mark

1981 -  $2,000,000 - Dave Winfield 

Total earngings

The following chart reveals the Major League Baseball players that have earned the most total salary in their career (through the end of 2003).

$109,845,000 - Greg Maddux 

$104,463,215 - Barry Bonds

$ 99,461,930 - Kevin Brown 

$ 98,001,000 - Roger Clemens

$ 97,376,294 - Albert Belle (retired)

$ 95,159,654 - Ken Griffey, Jr

$ 94,295,000 - Randy Johnson 

$ 93,010,002 - Gary Sheffield 

$ 90,568,000 - Sammy Sosa

$ 85,030,097 - Larry Walker

$ 83,765,000 - Barry Larkin

$ 83,238,334 - Mo Vaughn

$ 82,437,500 - Juan Gonzalez

$ 82,297,996 - Rafael Palmeiro

$ 82,199,437 - Tom Glavine

$ 78,860,000 - Matt Williams

$ 78,283,144 - Mike Piazza

$ 78,027,000 - Alex Rodriguez

$ 77,194,000 - Pedro Martinez

$ 76,700,000 - Cal Ripken, Jr (no data available for 1981-1984)

$ 76,885,715 - Bernie Williams

$ 75,603,815 - Roberto Alomar

$ 74,688,354 - Mark McGwire (retired)

$ 72,014,000 - Frank (Edward) Thomas

$ 68,342,501 - David Cone (retired)

$ 66,599,000 - Carlos Delgado

$ 64,320,000 - Raul Mondesi

$ 63,532,727 - Manny Ramirez

This is the "List of highest paid baseball players" reference article from the English Wikipedia. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. See also our Disclaimer.