Rickey Henderson’s quest for respect and the dawn of MLB’s big money era

In an extract from his new book on the Hall of Famer, Howard Bryant explores how fans and athletes reacted as serious money entered baseball

Baseball players weren't regular guys, but in 1974 they earned only slightly more than three times what the average American family paying to watch them play brought home. That year, the same year Rickey Henderson turned 16, the median household income in the United States was $11,000. The average major league salary was $35,000. Hank Aaron was in the final year of a three-year, $600,000 contract that at signing had made him the highest-paid player in the history of the game at $200,000 per season. A year earlier, Willie Mays retired. Mays ended his spectacular 22-year career never making more than $180,000 a year. There were always the outliers - a few players who dwarfed what the average American worker brought home, like Babe Ruth, who earned $80,000 a year during the Great Depression years of 1930 and 1931.

The outliers were the Mount Olympus guys, however, guys like Aaron and Mays, DiMaggio and Williams, who were the best to ever play baseball - and who made their biggest money near or at the very end of their career.

Adapted from the book Rickey: The Life and Legend of an American Original by Howard Bryant. Copyright (C) 2022 by Howard Bryant. From Mariner Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. Reprinted by permission.