Dollars and cents

Major League owners – a magnanimous bunch, as always – announce 68 years ago today that players in 1958 will receive a minimum salary of $7,000.

At the time, that salary is approximately $1,900 more than the average family income in the United States, but hardly enough to free some players from needing to continue working offseason jobs.

That $7,000 minimum salary in 1958 is equivalent today to $78,671.

As a point of reference, the majors’ minimum salary in 2026 will be $780,000.

Back in 1958 that would have been worth $69,400 – nearly $4,400 more than what baseball’s top wage earner, the New York Yankees’ Mickey Mantle, receives that season for hitting .304 with an American League-leading 42 home runs.

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