When the heck is Barry Bonds doing a signing?

[packs]

Yes, but the purchasing power of a dollar today vs 1973 doesn't compare. Nor does the price of just about everything else. The purchasing power of a six-figure income in 1973 was huge.

[carlsonjok]

Originally Posted by packs

Yes, but the purchasing power of a dollar today vs 1973 doesn't compare. Nor does the price of just about everything else. The purchasing power of a six-figure income in 1973 was huge.

I don’t find this particularly compelling.

Look at it this way: in 1973, CPI was 44.4 and in 2020 it was 258.8. That is a factor of 5.82 which translates Mays 1973 salary to $976,000 today. Not bad money for a schlub like me. But hardly worthy of a generational talent like Willie Mays.

For comparison, I looked at the salaries of today’s SF Giants. The closest to $976K is Jarlin Garcia, a league average middle reliever.

[packs]

Originally Posted by carlsonjok

I don’t find this particularly compelling.

Look at it this way: in 1973, CPI was 44.4 and in 2020 it was 258.8. That is a factor of 5.82 which translates Mays 1973 salary to $976,000 today. Not bad money for a schlub like me. But hardly worthy of a generational talent like Willie Mays.

For comparison, I looked at the salaries of today’s SF Giants. The closest to $976K is Jarlin Garcia, a league average middle reliever.

Have you considered what nearly a million dollars in purchasing power could have bought you in 1973? It's not apples to apples.

Average cost of a brand new house in 1973 was $32,500. Average cost of a brand new house in 2021 is $400,000. That $32,500 that bought you a brand new house in 1973 is worth less than 200K in 2021, or only enough for half a new house.

How much did a new car cost in 1973? Just over $4,000. Average cost of a new car in 2021 is about $40,000.

That $4,000 in 1973 would be worth $24,000 today, or half a new car.

Federal minimum wage in 1973 was $1.60. Federal minimum wage in 2021 is still only $7.25. You actually had more purchasing power then than you do now on Federal minimum wage.

Everyone could always use more money but his salary put him far ahead of every normal person around him.

[carlsonjok]

Originally Posted by packs

Have you considered what nearly a million dollars in purchasing power could have bought you in 1973? It's not apples to apples.

Have you considered that CPI *is* a measure of purchasing power? Because it is. And the beauty of it is that it is a representative basket of goods and services, which means it is immune to cherry-picking.

Everyone could always use more money but his salary put him far ahead of every normal person around him.

Willie Mays was a generational talent. Comparing him to the average person is, at best, a specious argument. The fact of the matter is that none of us would accept the argument from our employer that they *could* pay us more given our performance and value to the company, but we should just sit down, shut up, and be thankful that we are getting paid a bit more than the average Joe on the street. We'd walk out the door and find someone to pay us what we were worth. And would be right to do so.

Mays, and his contemporaries, didn't have that luxury because of the reserve clause. They may have been paid a lot relative to workaday folks, but they were grossly underpaid relative to the rarity of their talent and the profits they brought to the company that employed them. I got caught up in one of the failed attempts to schedule a Mays signing. I wasn't happy about it, but I will never begrudge him some level of bitterness regarding his treatment by baseball.

[Topps206]

You can’t really control when you were born and what era you grew up in. Mays would have a contract of hundreds of millions of dollars today, but but Mays was born and played in an era where the Reserve Clause ruled and free agency didn’t exist. The Curt Flood incident happened when Mays was in his late thirties.

Also, if he was upset about money, was he not making money at the shows he did and the $100 he charged by mail?

It’s not my place to say how someone should or shouldn’t feel, especially if it’s someone I don’t know, but frustration can be misplaced, and that’s exactly what it is if this is how he was acting towards fans.