A-Rod unmatched in converting talent into cash

Alex Rodriguez is well on his way toward earning an unprecedented $500 million in salary for his career. Chuck Solomon/SI

How A-Rod Compares Athlete Years Average Annual Salary* Alex Rodriguez (MLB) 1994-2017 $19.3M Michael Jordan (NBA) 1984-98/'01-03 $7.8M Wayne Gretzky (NHL) 1979-1999 $3.7M Joe Montana (NFL) 1979-1994 $2.6M *Inflation-adjusted annually into '07 dollars

There goes Alex Rodriguez, trying to be the center of attention again. Last week the Yankees third baseman again tried to hijack a major event on the 2007 baseball calendar. But this time, no one complained.

The big news out of the A-Rod camp was that the ink had finally dried on his new deal with the Yankees. And unlike his ill-conceived announcement during Game 4 of the World Series (when his agent, Scott Boras, declared Rodriguez would opt out of his old deal), this one was a welcome break from the Mitchell Report's punch to the gut.

And it's almost perfect timing, because the shock of the size of Rodriguez's new contract seems to have worn off. In case you forgot, A-Rod re-signed with the Yankees for 10 years at a base salary of $275 million, by far the biggest pact in the history of American sports. It seems only fitting that the guy who broke the mold back in 2000 was outdone only by himself.

Sure, by flouting his agent and returning to the Yanks hat in hand after opting out, A-Rod's new deal is only an 8 percent increase over the previous contract he signed with the Texas Rangers. So some of those wild fantasies Boras had about a $350 million mega-contract will probably end up going to some other player down the line (no doubt to another Boras client).

But that doesn't make A-Rod's new deal any less gaudy in its magnitude and scope. His $27.5 million average annual paycheck blows everything else out of the water -- it's nearly 12 times the Major League Baseball average last season and is more than the Tampa Bay Devil Rays' entire payroll in '07.

Boras argues that there's never been a player like A-Rod, and the slugger may eventually overtake Barry Bonds' all-time home run record. Fans, pundits and those inside baseball are mostly in agreement that -- his recent playoff failings aside -- Rodriguez is the best all-around player in the game. He has a career .306 batting average and has chalked up 44 home runs and 128 RBIs per season. And with 518 total home runs at age 32, there's strong indication that A-Rod can eventually top Bonds, who may be stuck on 762 while facing an indictment from a federal grand jury.

So sure, there's plenty of evidence to suggest that the best player in his sport deserves the biggest payout. But is this anywhere near commensurate with his accomplishments? To put Rodriguez's new windfall into historical perspective, I compared the salary he'll have earned over his entire career with comparable icons in the three other major American sports, the so-called "max guys," whose salaries during their heydays were the benchmarks in their respective leagues.

Assuming A-Rod plays out his entire 10-year deal and then retires at 42, he'll have earned a grand total of $445 million in salary over a 24-year career, plus another potential $30 million in possible performance bonuses and marketing rights. That's almost enough to purchase both major league franchises in Florida, the state in which he came of age. Albert Pujols, acknowledged as the best player in the National League, is working for peanuts by comparison: He signed a seven-year, $100 million contract in 2004.

When you adjust Rodriguez's annual salaries year-by-year for inflation and translate them into '07 dollars, that works out to $19.3 million per season on average.

That figure is about two-and-a-half times more than Michael Jordan ever earned: an inflation-adjusted $7.8 million a year over his 16 seasons in the NBA, including the two years in which he was paid more than $30 million by the Chicago Bulls. And A-Rod is miles ahead of Wayne Gretzky ($3.7 million annual average over 20 seasons) and Joe Montana ($2.6 million a year over 16 years).

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