Baseball: clemems signs for $18, 000,000

AP NewsBreak: Clemens to play, sets record salary for pitchers

By RONALD BLUM, AP Sports Writer
January 21, 2005
NEW YORK (AP) -- Roger Clemens is coming back for one more year -- and is getting the highest salary for a pitcher in baseball history.

The Rocket and the Houston Astros agreed Friday to an $18 million, one-year contract, and the seven-time Cy Young Award winner made the commitment to play for his 22nd major league season.

Houston called a news conference but did not reveal the subject. A baseball source familiar with the arrangements said it was to announce an agreement with Clemens that would give him a record salary for a pitcher, topping the $17.5 million Pedro Martinez earned with Boston last year in the option year of his contract.


Clemens first retired after pitching for the New York Yankees in the 2003 World Series. But he changed his mind and agreed on Jan. 12 last year to join his hometown Astros, accepting a $5 million, one-year deal that was way below his market price.

The 42-year-old right-hander helped lead the Astros within one win of their first World Series appearance, earning $1,825,000 in bonuses based largely on Houston's home attendance, then said again that he was ``99 percent'' retired.

But momentum built after he returned earlier this month for a Hawaiian vacation, and he asked for $22 million salary -- matching his uniform number -- when proposed figures for salary arbitration were filed Tuesday. Houston offered $13.5 million, leaving the midpoint at $17.75 million.

His agents, Randy and Alan Hendricks, then negotiated the deal with the Astros on Wednesday and Thursday.

Clemens is agreeing to a contract that makes him the highest-paid pitcher for the fifth time, following deals with Boston in 1989 ($2.5 million average), with the Red Sox in 1991 ($5.38 million), with Toronto in December 1996 ($8.25 million) and the Yankees in August 2000 ($15.45 million). The two contracts with Boston and the one with New York made him the sport's highest-paid player overall.

Clemens also is getting the highest, one-year contract in baseball history, topping Greg Maddux's $14.75 million deal with Atlanta in 2003.

His decision to stay is one of the few bright spots in an otherwise miserable offseason for the Astros. All-Star second baseman Jeff Kent left to sign with Los Angeles, All-Star center fielder Carlos Beltran departed to sign with the New York Mets, center fielder Lance Berkman tore up a knee playing flag football at a church function and promising but injured pitcher Wade Miller was let go.

Clemens, a 10-time All-Star, is 10th on the career wins list with 328, one behind Steve Carlton. Clemens' 4,317 strikeouts are second to Nolan Ryan's 5,714.

His decision to sign with Houston last year was spurred by former Yankees teammate Andy Pettitte, who left New York to sign with the Astros. Clemens went 18-4 with a 2.98 ERA and 218 strikeouts, winning his first Cy Young in the NL, but Pettitte hurt an elbow tendon while batting in his first start, was largely ineffective and had season-ending surgery in August.

At $18 million, Clemens tied Sammy Sosa and Barry Bonds for the fourth-highest average salary in the major leagues, trailing only Alex Rodriguez ($25.2 million), Manny Ramirez ($20 million) and Derek Jeter ($18.9 million).

woah! i never realised there was that sorta money in baseball.

in terms of sport, is baseball paying out the most money in wages transfers in the states?

Baseball by far pays the most. It almost seems like minimum wage is like 3 million. Wasn't it A-Rod that had the 200 Million dollar deal?

woah! that sure is alot of money. how much does it cost to get into a game?

this is a tremendous amount of money for a 42 year old pitcher no matter how great he is, at his age each pitch may be his last

Depends on the stadium and where you sit. Here at Coors Field where the Rockies play, the have the rock pile seats for $5. So they can go from $5 to the Hundreds.

here is a link to the seating chart for the mariners, ticket prices range from $7 to $50 for single game tickets, i think this is about average

seattle.mariners.mlb.com...

while i used to be able to go to maybe 20 games a year i am now down to a couple of games a season, for my wife and i to drive an hour to seattle, pay for parking, something to eat and tickets to a game it easily costs us $150....fortunatly we still get to see the games on tv free

MLB: The continued rise of salaries & ticket prices
Reflecting the ongoing surge in professional sports revenues, the average Major League Baseball salary rose again this year to $2.3 million. So which pro sport spends the most on its athletes? Read on to see why it's all a matter of perspective.
By Spiro Kiousis, 4/12/2001


Reflecting the ongoing surge in professional sports revenues, the average Major League Baseball salary rose again this year to $2.3 million — up nearly 14 percent from last season — according to recent Associated Press reports. The average has more than doubled since 1992, the first time it reached the $1-million mark. This year's big winner was Alex Rodriguez, who signed a record $252-million deal over 10 years during the offseason.

While sports salaries continue to escalate at unprecedented rates, the question of which sport pays its athletes the most is a matter of perspective. For example, baseball players, who compete in 162 games a season, average about $14,000 per contest, certainly not chump change to the casual fan, but not extravagant compared to their counterparts in other sports.

Basketball players, in comparison, make about $48,000 a game. Figures reported by the National Basketball Players Association show the average annual salary to be approximately $3.9 million. The salary growth rate in basketball is even greater than that of baseball. Just a decade ago, the average annual salary in the NBA was around $1 million, which has now quadrupled to its current level.

At $1 million, the National Football League has the lowest average salary of the three major sports. But when broken down by games played, professional football players have the most lucrative deals, receiving over $62,000 per contest. Over the past decade, the NFL’s salary growth rate has been much steadier than those of both baseball and basketball. In fact, in both 1994 and 1997, the average salary actually dropped from the previous season.

Despite the NFL’s slower growth rate, its ticket prices are among the most expensive options for sports fans at an average of $48.97 each, according to a survey published by Team Marketing Report in Chicago last year. On the other hand, baseball remains the most affordable option at just $16.65 per ticket. Basketball is the most expensive with fans paying an average of $51.02 per ticket. At minimum, the typical family of four will spend almost $80 on tickets to attend a professional sporting event from the three major sports. Once parking and concessions are factored in, the total easily exceeds $100.

Even with the skyrocketing salaries, though, fans continue to flock to stadiums and arenas across the country in astounding numbers. In particular, the average attendance to NFL games is approximately 63,000. Nearly 31,000 fans attend a typical baseball game. Finally, 21,000 people usually watch live NBA games. In total, this means that sports franchises can expect to have 504,000 football fans, 2,511,00 baseball fans and 861,000 basketball fans visit their home arenas or stadiums on any given year.

Collectively, the combined revenue generated from attendance alone at these sporting events amounts to over $4.5 million per game. Of course, the larger money lies in the advertising sales, television contracts and promotional items. But in the end, the growth in sports salaries and ticket prices appear to show few signs of slowing down. With the emergence of alternate sports leagues, such as the XFL or Major League Soccer, however, perhaps the stronghold of the big three sports leagues will be challenged

yeah.. regular seating is about that much. One of the box seats here is like $150 or something like that. playoff tickets are escpecially pricey.

if the mariners are playing well tickets are hard to come by around here, they drew well last year while playing lousy because most of the tickets were sold before the season, playoff tickets are out of the question unless you own microsoft or boeing

Crazy money for a guy Clemens age. As TJ says, each pitch may be his last. He has had back spasm and hammy problems in the past, although he put tgether one hell of a well-earned Cy Young season last year.

I guess he earned it (the money) but as a GM, Ming (hmmm, Ming the GM - sounds good!) would not pay him that much. At least not unless Ming was reincarnated as an idiot Met GM.

Originally posted by rynaldo82
woah! that sure is alot of money. how much does it cost to get into a game?

the price isn't that much, but is made up for over 162 games.