Today in Useless Sports History, or for abbreviation's sake: TUSH

[Ted Williams] vs. [Alex Rodriguez]

Making 'Sense' of the Ever-Bloating Sports Dollar.

2/6/1958 - Boston Red Sox slugger Ted Williams signs for $135,000, making him the highest paid athlete ever at the time. Currently, Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez (no relation) has sports' biggest contract at $275M over 10 years. Assuming the $135,000 was for 2 years (he retired in 1960), and comparing it to the $55m A-Rod's set to get for two years of his 10-year total, let's put it in perspective:

>>Each dollar of Ted's contract in 1958 would = $407.41 of today's semolians.
>>Good Ol' Petrol was $.29 cents a gallon in '58. That's 465,517 gallons of Texas Tea.
Today, Alex could only get 31,428,571 gallons at the pump to fill the tank (at a generous $1.75/gallon)

>>A Chevrolet Corvette would yield you $3,631, or 37 cars. Jay Leno would be jealous.
>>Today's athlete can foot the bill for 2,200 cars, assuming a car would cost you $25,000.

>>And finally, a modest house in 1958 was $12,750, or roughly 10 to 11 houses for the Tedster.
>>Assuming a shoebox of a house in Bergen County NJ goes for $300,000 today (if you're lucky), that's 1,833 houses a man in A-Rod's position can afford over two years worth of work.


Looking at the numbers on the surface, that sucks TUSH for the rest of us given the current climate :-)