Reds in the middle of the 1984 season to assume the
role of player coach. On September 11, 1985, Rose
moved ahead of Ty Cobb to become the all-time hits
leader. Although he retired as a player in 1986, he
continued as manager of the Reds until 1989.
On April 1, 1989, Bart Giamatti began his duties
as baseball’s seventh commissioner. He was immedi-
ately confronted with allegations that Rose had gam-
bled on baseball games, in violation of league rules.
An attorney, John Dowd, was hired by Giamatti to in-
vestigate the involvement of Rose with gambling.
Dowd’s report concluded that there was evidence
that Rose bet on baseball. According to the league’s
rules, gambling on baseball was grounds for a life-
time suspension from Major League Baseball. On
August 23, 1989, Rose signed an agreement that per-
manently banned him from baseball. The agree-
ment stipulated, however, that he would be eligible
to petition for reinstatement after one year. On Sep-
tember 1, 1989, Giamatti died of a heart attack. On
September 13, 1989, Fay Vincent was elected to
serve the unfinished four and one-half years of
Giamatti’s commissionership. The agreement that
Rose made with Giamatti resulted in his ineligibility
to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Revenues and Salaries While the decade was rid-
dled with numerous baseball controversies, owners’
revenues and players’ salaries increased signifi-
cantly. In 1980, Major League Baseball’s annual at-
tendance was 43 million. That attendance plum-
meted temporarily during the strike, but later in the
decade, it recovered to reach an all-time high of 50
million. Baseball had become more competitive as
more teams entered postseason play. During the
period between 1981 and 1988, eleven different
teams won divisional titles in the American League.
In the National League, ten different teams won di-
visional races, and on October 3, 1981, the Montreal
Expos clinched a playoff title, becoming the first
team from Canada to do so.
Media contracts contributed significantly to in-
creased revenue for baseball. On April 7, 1983, the
American Broadcasting Company (ABC) and the
National Broadcasting Company (NBC) agreed to
pay Major League Baseball $1.2 billion for rights to
broadcast the upcoming season. In 1988, gross reve-
nues exceeded $1 billion. Each club received $7 mil-
lion from television pacts. In January, 1989, a $1.1
billion Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) televi-
sion deal was made, along with a $400 million four-
year contract with ESPN for the cable rights to 175
games per season and a $50 million four-year radio
deal with CBS.
Fueled by these lucrative television contracts,
player salaries increased significantly as well. In
1981, the average player salary was $185,000. In
1984, the average salary increased to $300,000, with
thirty players making more than $1 million each. In
1989, the average player salary rose to $500,000, with
twenty players earning at least $2 million a year. Indi-
vidual player contracts were very lucrative in the
1980’s. On December 15, 1980, the New York Yan-
kees signed Dave Winfield to a ten-year contract.
The deal included incentives that could make his sal-
ary anywhere between $13 million and $25 million,
making him the highest-paid athlete in the history of
team sports to that time. On February 15, 1986,
Fernando Valenzuela signed a three-year $5.5 mil-
lion contract. The contract stipulated that his an-
nual salary would increase over the three years, and
in 1988 that salary surpassed $2 million.
Offensive Performances On the playing field, the
advent of the running game resulted in unprece-
dented stolen-base records, as six players during the
1980’s recorded one hundred or more stolen bases
in a season. On August 27, 1982, Rickey Henderson
broke the single-season base-stealing record when
he stole his 119th base; he went on to steal a total of
130 bases in the year. In 1987, the records for total
home runs hit in each of the two major leagues were
broken, when players hit 2,634 home runs in the
American League and 1,824 in the National League.
Widening of the strike zone, lack of quality pitching,
and a “juiced” ball were reasons provided to explain
this dramatic increase in home runs.
Pitching Performances Pitching in the 1980’s did
not maintain the game-deciding dominance it had
enjoyed in the previous two decades. The 1980’s re-
corded a total of thirteen no-hitters, compared to
thirty-four no-hitters in the 1960’s and thirty-one in
the 1970’s. Several perfect games were recorded,
however. On May 15, 1981, the Cleveland Indians’
Len Barker pitched a perfect game against the To-
ronto Blue Jays. It was the first perfect game since- In addition, Mike Witt in 1984 and Tom
Browning in 1988 recorded perfect games. On Sep-
tember 26, 1981, Nolan Ryan of the Houston Astros
pitched a no-hitter, becoming the first pitcher to
92 Baseball The Eighties in America