On March 16, 1978, high-priced free agent Andy Messersmith separates his shoulder in an exhibition game for the New York Yankees. A 20-game winner both for the Angels and Dodgers, Messersmith will never win a game for the Yankees. He will pitch one more season in 1979 before retiring.
Messersmith will however leave an impact on the game few have. He was the first true free agent and his impact as noted in an ESPN Column changed the fairness in player compensation and free doom to choose where to play.
The rise in average salary
How did free agency immediately impact salaries?
Here are average player salaries by year with today’s value in parenthesis:
1975: $44,676 ($150,000)
1976: $51,501 ($159,000)
1977: $76,066 ($220,000)
1978: $99,876 ($271,000)
1979: $113,558($286,000)
Salaries of top players
1975: Dick Allen $200,000; Johnny Bench $175,000; Ferguson Jenkins $175,000
1977: Mike Schmidt $560,000; Reggie Jackson $525,000; Joe Morgan $400,000
The first super agent
When the first class of free agents hit the market after the 1976 season, one agent had nearly all the players as his clients: Jerry Kapstein. He had become one of the first agents in the early ’70s, and had signed up about 60 players, many from the Red Sox, A’s and Orioles. Several were free agents. Joe Rudi was one of them.
“He’s the finest man I ever met,” Rudi said. “He had impeccable principles, he so well-organized and prepared in arbitrations and everything he told us all along from day one happened.”
Grich had joined up with Kapstein in 1973.
“He was basically working in Washington as a judge’s advocate in 1972,” Grich said. “I know Yaz had Bob Woolf, and he was having trouble signing and that’s when you first started to hear the word agent. Jerry moved to Providence, Rhode Island, and in 1973, Carlton (Fisk) and I picked up Jerry at around the same time.”
His clients in 1976 (not all were free agents) included Rudi, Grich, Don Baylor, Carlton Fisk, Rollie Fingers, Bert Campaneris, Gene Tenace, Ken Holtzman, Goose Gossage, Richie Zisk, Rick Burleson, Dwight Evans and Al Bumbry.
