Salaries: Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, Yankee teammates.

Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, Yankee teammates 1923-1934, had the first great home run race in 1927. They were tied in early September at 45. Ruth broke his own season record of 59 set in 1921 by hitting 60. Gehrig stalled and finished with 47, the highest total by anyone other than Ruth through 1927.

Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig at
United States Military Academy
West Point, NY May 6, 1927
Public domain
via Wikimedia Commons

Salaries: Mantle and Maris, the M & M Boys of 1961. Monday, March 15, 2021

Columns to the right contain their ages and the so far undefined asterisks (*). Salaries:

framed: one of the alternate salaries used because it seems to make more sense. Percent is the increase from the previous year. Read the first post in this series for more; it's referenced below the matrix.

Year	Ruth	Gehrig	Ruth	Gehrig	Ruth	Gehrig	Ruth	Gehrig	Ruth	Gehrig
1914	$2,500				19				Boston Red Sox
1915	$2,500		0.00%		20				Boston Red Sox
1916	$3,500		40.00%		21				Boston Red Sox
1917	$5,000		42.86%		22				Boston Red Sox
1918	$9,000		80.00%		23				Boston Red Sox
1919	$10,000		11.11%		24		*		Boston Red Sox
1920	$20,000		100.00%		25		*		New York Yankees
1921	$30,000		50.00%		26		*		New York Yankees
1922	$52,000		73.33%		27		*		New York Yankees
1923	$52,000	$2,400	0.00%		28	20	*		New York Yankees	New York Yankees
1924	$52,000	$2,750	0.00%	14.58%	29	21	*		New York Yankees	New York Yankees
1925	$52,000	$3,750	0.00%	36.36%	30	22	*	*	New York Yankees	New York Yankees
1926	$52,000	$6,500	0.00%	73.33%	31	23	*	*	New York Yankees	New York Yankees
1927	$70,000	$8,000	34.62%	23.08%	32	24	*	*	New York Yankees	New York Yankees
1928	$70,000	$25,000	0.00%	212.50%	33	25	*	*	New York Yankees	New York Yankees
1929	$70,000	$25,000	0.00%	0.00%	34	26	*	*	New York Yankees	New York Yankees
1930	$80,000	$25,000	14.29%	0.00%	35	27	*	*	New York Yankees	New York Yankees
1931	$80,000	$25,000	0.00%	0.00%	36	28	*	*	New York Yankees	New York Yankees
1932	$75,000	$25,000	-6.25%	0.00%	37	29	*	*	New York Yankees	New York Yankees
1933	$52,000	$25,000	-30.67%	0.00%	38	30	*	*	New York Yankees	New York Yankees
1934	$35,000	$23,000	-32.69%	-8.00%	39	31	*	*	New York Yankees	New York Yankees
1935	???	$31,000		34.78%	40	32		*	Boston Braves	New York Yankees
1936		$31,000		0.00%		33		*		New York Yankees
1937		$36,000		16.13%		34				New York Yankees
1938		$39,000		8.33%		35		*		New York Yankees
1939		$36,000		-7.69%		36		*		New York Yankees
1940		$39,000		8.33%		37				Did not play.
1941		$35,000		-10.26%		38				Did not play.
Year	Ruth	Gehrig	Ruth	Gehrig	Ruth	Gehrig	Ruth	Gehrig	Ruth	Gehrig

Ruth had multiple multi-year contracts, which explains his same salary for multiple consecutive years. Gehrig was aggressive on the field but timid in negotiations.  The salaries of other Yankees in those years will be considered in a future post.

Salaries: sluggers before free agency 1920-1976. First of a series. Sunday, March 7, 2021

Annual salaries in this series are from https://www.baseball-reference.com/:

Salaries may not be complete (especially pre-1985) and may not include some earned bonuses ...

The Salary column contains some obvious mistakes. For instance, Willie Mays was paid $12,500 in 1954 after missing most of the previous two seasons in military service in the U.S. Army. Mays was NL MVP in 1954 but is shown for the next season getting the same salary: no raise. No way. The note for 1955 states that The Sporting News has Mays 1955 salary as $25,000, double his 1954 salary. That rings true.

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This link has complete data on the sluggers profiles in this series.