Baseball’s Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York celebrates its 75th anniversary this year, but January 29th marks the date in 1936 when the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA) released the results of its first vote, enshrining Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson, Christy Mathewson, Babe Ruth, and Honus Wagner. The building that holds the plaques and memorabilia of the greats of our national pastime opened its doors three years later. By then 21 other names had been added to the honor roll, including Lou Gehrig, who had just been diagnosed with Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, a fatal illness that many now call Lou Gehrig’s disease).
Just as there are quibbles about who was left out of the most recent balloting there were slights back at the beginning. Rogers (his first name was his mother’s maiden name) Hornsby, who still possesses the second highest lifetime batting average behind Cobb, was overlooked for six years before gaining entrance to Cooperstown.
Hornsby provides quite a contrast to many overpaid professional athletes of the 21st Century. His mother was widowed when Rogers was only two. The single parent family moved from Winters, Texas to Fort Worth so Hornsby’s older brothers could get meat packing jobs with Swift and Company. At ten, Rogers went to work part time at Swift as a messenger and utility infielder on the company baseball team. He dropped out of school in the tenth grade to labor at Swift and continued to play semi-pro baseball in the evenings and weekends. Hornsby signed a minor league contract at 18. He made it to the majors at 19 and by the time he reached the age of 25 he was an established star with the St. Louis Cardinals. After the 1921 season, in which he batted .397, placed second in the league in home runs, and led the National League in doubles, triples, runs scored, runs batted in, slugging percentage and on-base percentage, Hornsby earned the highest salary in all of major league baseball: $18,500. Adjusted for modern inflation that would be slightly more than a quarter million dollars per year. Throughout his life Hornsby neither drank nor smoked. He did not go to what he termed “movin’ picture shows” and he refused to play cards. However, he was an inveterate gambler on horse races, losing much of his salary as a player and later, manager. He remained so constantly indebted that he was still playing for and managing a Mexican League team during World War II.
There are no equals of Hornsby at the plate in today’s major league baseball, but salaries have skyrocketed in the three and a half decades since players were allowed to become free agents. Earlier this month Los Angeles Dodger pitcher Clayton Kershaw signed a deal that will pay him approximately $30 million per year for seven seasons.
Before anyone starts to complain about Kershaw’s salary, consider that even if he made the entirety of his contract, $215 million, in a single year, Kershaw would not even be a blip on the radar of the world’s richest people. And, by the way, Oxfam recently noted that a mere 85 individuals possess as much wealth as the poorest half of the world’s population!
Why do we, the masses, tolerate this? Probably for the same sort of reason that more people can name the members of the Baseball Hall of Fame or the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame than any living rich person beyond Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, and a Koch brother. We spend too much of our lives diverted: either working too hard to have time for even the most worthy of diversions like a game of catch or a fine piece of music or we are stupefied by what passes for mind numbing entertainment that big business tries to drown us in. Need I mention the Kardashians, Honey Boo-Boo or pay per view “Ultimate Fighting Championships”?
While you’re searching for the nearest guillotine, the list of those 85 nabobs will be forthcoming. Before sharpening the blade, perhaps we should take a closer look at those who are sitting on enough wealth to feed, clothe and properly house most, if not all, of China, India, and Africa. There are some incredibly wealthy souls like Bill Gates, Warren Buffet and Mark Zuckerberg who have signed a pledge to donate at least half their fortunes to charities. Readers will have to do their own research and form their own judgments on the other wealthy folk listed below. Without further ado here’s your Hall of Shame, with their current net worth (estimated as of December, 2013 by Forbes magazine):
- Carlos Slim Helu & family, $73 B, telecom, Mexico
- Bill Gates, $67 B, Microsoft, United States
- Amancio Ortega, $57 B, Zara, Spain
- Warren Buffett, $53.5 B, Berkshire Hathaway, United States
- Larry Ellison, $43 B, Oracle, United States
- Charles Koch, $34 B, diversified, United States
- David Koch, $34 B, diversified, United States
- Li Ka-shing, $31 B, diversified, Hong Kong
- Liliane Bettencourt & family, $30 B, L'Oreal, France
- Bernard Arnault & family, $29 B, LVMH, France
- Christy Walton & family, $28.2 B, Wal-Mart, United States
- Stefan Persson, $28 B, H&M, Sweden
- Michael Bloomberg, $27 B, Bloomberg LP, United States
- Jim Walton, $26.7 B, Wal-Mart, United States
- Sheldon Adelson, $26.5 B, casinos, United States
- Alice Walton, $26.3 B, Wal-Mart, United States
- S. Robson Walton, $26.1 B, Wal-Mart, United States
- Karl Albrecht, $26 B, Aldi, Germany
- Jeff Bezos, $25.2 B, Amazon.com, United States
- Larry Page, $23 B, Google, United States
- Sergey Brin, $22.8 B, Google, United States
- Mukesh Ambani, $21.5 B, petrochemicals, oil & gas, India
- Michele Ferrero & family, $20.4 B, chocolates, Italy
- Lee Shau Kee, $20.3 B, diversified, Hong Kong
- David Thomson & family, $20.3 B, media, Canada
- Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Alsaud, $20 B, investments, Saudi Arabia
- Carl Icahn, $20 B, leveraged buyouts, United States
- Thomas & Raymond Kwok & family, $20 B, real estate, Hong Kong
- Dieter Schwarz, $19.5 B, retail, Germany
- George Soros, $19.2 B, hedge funds, United States
- Theo Albrecht, Jr. & family, $18.9 B, Aldi, Trader Joe's, Germany
- Alberto Bailleres Gonzalez & family, $18.2 B, mining, Mexico
- Jorge Paulo Lemann, $17.8 B, beer, Brazil
- Alisher Usmanov, $17.6 B, steel, telecom, investments, Russia
- Iris Fontbona & family, $17.4 B, mining, Chile
- Forrest Mars, Jr., $17 B, candy, United States
- Jacqueline Mars, $17 B, candy, United States
- John Mars, $17 B, candy, United States
- Georgina Rinehart, $17 B, mining, Australia
- German Larrea Mota Velasco & family, $16.7 B, mining, Mexico
- Mikhail Fridman, $16.5 B, oil, banking, telecom, Russia
- Lakshmi Mittal, $16.5 B, steel, India
- Aliko Dangote, $16.1 B, cement, sugar, flour, Nigeria
- Len Blavatnik, $16 B, diversified, United States
- Cheng Yu-tung, $16 B, diversified, Hong Kong
- Joseph Safra, $15.9 B, banking, Brazil
- Rinat Akhmetov, $15.4 B, steel, coal, Ukraine
- Leonid Mikhelson, $15.4 B, gas, chemicals, Russia
- Leonardo Del Vecchio, $15.3 B, eyeglasses, Italy
- Michael Dell, $15.3 B, Dell, United States
- Steve Ballmer, $15.2 B, Microsoft, United States
- Viktor Vekselberg, $15.1 B, oil, metals, Russia
- Paul Allen, $15 B, Microsoft, investments, United States
- Francois Pinault & family, $15 B, retail, France
- Vagit Alekperov, $14.8 B, Lukoil, Russia
- Phil Knight, $14.4 B, Nike, United States
- Andrey Melnichenko, $14.4 B, coal, fertilizers, Russia
- Dhanin Chearavanont & family, $14.3 B, food, Thailand
- Susanne Klatten, $14.3 B, BMW, pharmaceuticals, Germany
- Vladimir Potanin, $14.3 B, metals, Russia
- Michael Otto & family, $14.2 B, retail, real estate, Germany
- Vladimir Lisin, $14.1 B, steel, transport, Russia
- Gennady Timchenko, $14.1 B, oil & gas, Russia
- Luis Carlos Sarmiento, $13.9 B, banking, Colombia
- Mohammed Al Amoudi, $13.5 B, oil, diversified, Saudi Arabia
- Tadashi Yanai & family, $13.3 B, retail, Japan
- Mark Zuckerberg, $13.3 B, Facebook, United States
- Henry Sy & family, $13.2 B, diversified, Philippines
- Donald Bren, $13 B, real estate, United States
- Serge Dassault & family, $13 B, aviation, France
- Lee Kun-Hee, $13 B, Samsung, South Korea
- Mikhail Prokhorov, $13 B, investments, Russia
- Alexey Mordashov, $12.8 B, steel, investments, Russia
- Antonio Ermirio de Moraes & family, $12.7 B, diversified, Brazil
- Abigail Johnson, $12.7 B, money management, United States
- Ray Dalio, $12.5 B, hedge funds, United States
- Robert Kuok, $12.5 B, diversified, Malaysia
- Miuccia Prada, $12.4 B, Prada, Italy
- Ronald Perelman, $12.2 B, leveraged buyouts, United States
- Anne Cox Chambers, $12 B, media, United States
- Stefan Quandt, $11.9 B, BMW, Germany
- Ananda Krishnan, $11.7 B, telecoms, Malaysia
- Alejandro Santo Domingo Davila, $11.7 B, beer, Colombia
- James Simons, $11.7 B, hedge funds, United States
- Charoen Sirivadhanabhakdi, $11.7 B, drinks, Thailand
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