Submitted on Thu, 09/22/2005 - 10:06pm
Disclaimer - The following article is reposted here because it is an issue with some relevance to the IWW. The views of the author do not necessarily agree with those of the IWW and vice versa.
http://www.shepherd-express.com/9_1_05/newsandviews.htm - Inside Baseball
MLB accused of avoiding labor responsibility - By Barbara Miner
Baseball is about statistics--lots of them. Here are a few you may want to keep in mind the next time the Brew Crew's Geoff Jenkins or Brady Clark hits one out of the park.
Baseballs used in the major leagues are hand sewn at a factory in Turrialba, Costa Rica, run by Rawlings Sporting Goods. Workers at the factory make roughly four baseballs per hour, which requires about one stitch every 8.3 seconds, or 4,536 stitches in a 10.5-hour shift.
The Costa Rican workers are paid about 28 cents per ball, for an annual wage of less than $3,000 a year, which barely brings them above the country's poverty level.
In 2005, the average salary for a Major League Baseball (MLB) player was $2,632,655, according to Baseball Almanac. There are 162 regular season games, for a per game average of $16,250.