Babe Ruth as a Free Agent: What the Old-Time Greats Would Earn in Today's Labor Market for Baseball Players

Abstract

While baseball fans will always argue whether the old-time players were better than today's players, one thing is clear Babe Ruth, Walter Johnson, and other greats from the past would welcome the opportunity to sell their talents to the highest bidder in the modern Major League Baseball (MLB) labor market. Using a salary equation and the performance statistics of these and other old-time All Stars we estimate the salaries "Old-Time Greats" would command in a modern market for MLB players. We find that Babe Ruth might have been ahead of his time in understanding the market value of a quality baseball player, but he was behind the times in his ability to generate a salary commensurate to his performance.In 1930, when Babe Ruth was told that President Hoover made less than the $80,000 Ruth was demanding, Ruth replied, "What the hell has Hoover got to do with it? Besides, I had a better year than he did."