1968 St. Louis Cardinals $800,000 V. 2011 Cardinals $105 Million

In 1967, the St. Louis Cardinals beat the Boston Red Sox in the World Series to become world champions. Entering spring training in 1968, the Cardinals had the highest payroll in baseball history .

It was believed that the 1968 Cardinals payroll would exceed $800,000.

Light-hitting shortstop Dal Maxville batted .227/.297/.297 with a home run and 41 RBIs. His 1967 $25,000 salary was the lowest on the team.

Roger Maris batted .261/.346/.405 with nine home runs and 55 RBIs. He was paid $75,000. Maris made more money than the entire 1934 world champion Cardinals team.

National Leaguers had an average 1967 salary of about $24,000, with more than one-half of the players earning at least $18,000.

It is difficult to obtain accurate salary data before 1989, but the following are Baseball-Reference's estimates for the following 1968 Cardinals:

Orlando Cepeda    $80,0000
Julian Javier        $45,000
Mike Shannon        $40,000
Dal Maxville        $37,500
Lou Brock        $70,000
Curt Flood        $72,500
Roger Maris        $75,000
Tim McCarver        $60,000
Bob Gibson        $85,000

In 2011, the world champion St. Louis Cardinals payroll of $105,433,572 was the 11th highest among the 30 teams.

The following are some of the  salaries of the 2011 world champion Cardinals:

Albert Pujols        $14,508,395
Skip Schumaker    $ 2,750,000
David Freese        $416,000
Ryan Theriot        $3,300,000
Matt Holliday        $16,317,774
John Jay        $ 416,000
Lance Berkman    $8,000,000
Yadier Molina        $5,312,500
Chris Carpenter    $14,259,403

Taking inflation into account, the 1968 Cardinals $800,000 payroll equals about $5 million today.

Team payrolls have skyrocketed since the advent of free agency. The 2011 Cardinals $105,433,572 payroll would have been about $17 million in 1968.

Baseball players should never stop thanking Marvin Miller.