When Stan Musial established a National League record by signing a one-year, $100,000 contract, he got his first pay raise from the Cardinals in seven years.
On Jan. 29, 1958, Musial, 37, became the first National League player with a six-figure salary when the Cardinals agreed to pay him $100,000 to play first base.
After Musial won his seventh batting title by hitting .351 in 1957, Cardinals general manager Bing Devine asked him what salary he wanted for 1958.
In the book “Stan Musial: The Man’s Own Story,” Musial said he told Devine, “I’d like to be the highest-salaried player the National League has had. ”
Devine and Musial agreed on $91,000. Team owner Gussie Busch generously instructed Devine to give Musial $100,000.
According to Bob Broeg in the Feb. 5, 1958, edition of The Sporting News and verified by James Giglio in the book “Musial: From Stash to Stan the Man,” it was Musial’s first pay raise since Fred Saigh, then the Cardinals’ owner, signed Musial for $75,000, with a $5,000 attendance clause, on Feb. 18, 1951.
In the next seven seasons, Musial won three batting titles (1951, 1952 and 1957) and a RBI crown (1956), and hit .310 or better with at least 21 home runs each year. None of that earned him a raise until Busch surprised Musial with the $100,000 offer for 1958.
(In 1952, Saigh invited reporters and photographers to a meeting he had with Musial. In a stunt that stunned and embarrassed Musial, Saigh handed him a contract with a blank amount and urged him to fill in any figure. The classy Musial said he would accept the same salary he received in 1951).
“Baseball has rewarded me richly,” Musial said after signing the $100,000 deal. “The Cardinals always have treated me more than fair, this year in particular. Mr. Busch and Bing wanted me to have this contract. I would have settled for less … I feel highly honored.”
Mary Murphy, secretary to every Cardinals owner since 1930, attended the signing. According to Broeg, Musial said to Murphy, “Did you ever think, Miss Murphy, that when I signed for $4,200 in 1942 I’d ever be in this position?”
Murphy later told Broeg, “He (Musial) hasn’t changed a bit. He’s the same boy he’s always been.”
In a Page 1 article in the Feb. 12, 1958, edition of The Sporting News, Dan Daniel reported the highest-paid big leaguers that year were Red Sox outfielder Ted Williams ($125,000 per year), Musial ($100,000), Giants outfielder Willie Mays ($75,000) and Braves pitcher Warren Spahn ($65,000). According to Daniel, Yankees outfielder Mickey Mantle was asking for $75,000 to play in 1958.
“What has been going on in this major league contract-signing season is utterly without precedent in the game,” Daniel wrote. “All over the nation there has been runaway inflation which has sent the cost of living higher and higher, to continual new records. Now this inflation has hit baseball with a frenzy which defies efforts at analysis from any angle.”
Musial responded by batting .337 and collecting his 3,000th hit in 1958.
When he hit .255 (first time below .300 in his career) in 1959, Musial asked for and received a $20,000 pay cut, to $80,000, for the 1960 season, according to The Sporting News.
“The Cardinals have been generous to me the past few years, so I thought I’d be kind to them,” Musial said.
Even with the pay cut, The Sporting News reported, the 1960 contract made Musial the first National League player to reach $1 million in career salary ($1,053,000 in 18 seasons).
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Musial – character. Who else is on record asking for a pay cut because of a down year? Anybody? No current major league ballplayer will buck the union and greedy mindset to settle for less, much less ASK for less, because of a down year. Will someone ever do the unthinkable and call out the players and the players union for escalating salaries and consequent ticket prices, food, parking, souvenirs, at the expense of his career? The best players used to earn what amounted to around ten times a middle-class salary. Now? The average MLB salary is two or three times what an average middle-class worker makes in a lifetime. MLB doesn’t have a monopoly on greed. NFL, NBA prime examples. At least tennis players and golfers only get paid if they produce. All a MLB, NFL, or NAB player needs is one good contract and he and his family should be set for life. And they can dog it and still get paid. Stan was “The Man” in ways that today’s athletes don’t want to understand.
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