Salaries: Mantle and Maris, the M & M Boys of 1961.

Roger Maris hit 100 home runs in his first two seasons with the Yankees, 1960 and 1961, and was American League (AL) Most Valuable Player (MVP) both years. Yankee teammate Mickey Mantle finished a very close second in MVP voting both years. Mantle had already been AL MVP in 1956 and 1957 and would be again in 1962, despite missing one month due to injury. The M & M Boys engaged in races for AL home run king with these results:

1960: Mantle 40, Maris 39

1961: Maris 61, Mantle 54

Maris broke the season home run record of 60 set by Yankee Babe Ruth in 1927. Through the 1960 season, the AL and NL played 154 regular season games. The AL expanded in 1961 by adding two new teams and adding 8 (5%) more games for a 162 game schedule (*). They were "immortalized" in an HBO movie:

Roger Maris 60th homer curtain call: "most unusual". Number 61, too. Saturday, April 4, 2015

So when Maris arrived in 1960, Mantle was king of the American League and paid accordingly. Maris was neither.

But as shown in the table below Maris was very well paid by the Yankees and for the 1962 season their salaries were surprisingly close, especially considering there was no free agency and players built up their salaries over time as Mantle had done since his 1951 rookie season at age 19.

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

BOLD: higher

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.

Year	Mantle	Maris	Mantle	Maris	Mantle	Maris	Mantle	Maris	Mantle	Maris
1951	$7,500				19		*		New York Yankees
1952	$10,000		33.33%		20				New York Yankees
1953	$17,500		75.00%		21		*		New York Yankees
1954	$21,000		20.00%		22		*		New York Yankees
1955	$25,000		19.05%		23		*		New York Yankees
1956	$32,000		28.00%		24		*		New York Yankees
1957	$60,000		87.50%		25		*		New York Yankees	Cleveland Indians
1958	$70,000		16.67%		26		*		New York Yankees	Cleveland/KC
1959	$75,000	$15,000	7.14%		27	24	*		New York Yankees	Kansas City As
1960	$65,000	$18,000	-13.33%	20.00%	28	25	*		New York Yankees	New York Yankees
1961	$72,000	$32,000	10.77%	77.78%	29	26	*		New York Yankees	New York Yankees
1962	$90,000	$70,000	25.00%	118.75%	30	27	*		New York Yankees	New York Yankees
1963	$100,000	$72,000	11.11%	2.86%	31	28	*		New York Yankees	New York Yankees
1964	$100,000	$67,500	0.00%	-6.25%	32	29			New York Yankees	New York Yankees
1965	$100,000	$72,000	0.00%	6.67%	33	30	*		New York Yankees	New York Yankees
1966	$100,000	$75,000	0.00%	4.17%	34	31	*		New York Yankees	New York Yankees
1967	$100,000	$75,000	0.00%	0.00%	35	32	*		New York Yankees	St. Louis Cardinals
1968	$100,000	$75,000	0.00%	0.00%	36	33	*		New York Yankees	St. Louis Cardinals
Year	Mantle	Maris	Mantle	Maris	Mantle	Maris	Mantle	Maris	Mantle	Maris

Following the 1960 and 1961 seasons, Maris received these percentage increases:

1960: 77.78%

1961: 118.75%

So for the 1962 season their salaries were:

Mantle: $90,000 (28.5% more than Maris)

Maris: $70,000 (22% less than Mantle)

Mantle had an off season in 1959 and took a 13% cut for 1960. George Weiss was Yankee general manager for Mantle's first ten seasons through 1960 and Weiss held Mantle accountable for his play both on and off the field. Giants center fielder Willie Mays passed Mantle in 1958. See:

Salaries: Mantle, Mays, Aaron. Sunday, March 14, 2021

General conclusions:

Mays was paid more than Mantle.

Aaron eventually passes Mays.

____________________

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.

__________________________

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