> of course now lots of them make preposterous amounts of money
Ah, but only the 1% ...!
And income inequality in baseball inversely correlates with performance.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1441352310000549
Abstract This paper presents evidence that payroll inequality within a team is negatively related to on field performance, in terms of team winning percentages in Major League Baseball. This relationship is increasing over time during the sample period and robust to changes in the relationship between payroll and winning. We find strong evidence that, in levels, total team payroll and team specific Gini coefficients are nonstationary. The results also indicate that there exists a structural break in the relationship between payroll, inequality, and winning percent following the strike of 1994-1995.