COUNTERPOINT : Steinbrenner Says Fans Will Balk at Salaries

George Steinbrenner, the man who built World Series champions in the late 1970s with pricey free agents, agrees with other baseball owners on one subject--that players’ salaries are getting too high.

“It’s just getting crazy. Shocked? Yes. Certainly,” the New York Yankees owner was quoted in the New York Daily News. “How can you pay a ballplayer 3, 3 1/2-million dollars a year when the head of the Chiefs of Staff is making just $77,000 a year?”

“Some way, somehow, someone has to say, ‘Stop! Whoa!’ Can one man make a $3-million difference in a ballclub. I don’t know.”

The Yankees do not have a $3-million player yet, although Don Mattingly is entering the final season of a three-year contract and would like an extension for at least that much.

The Yankees did, however, sign free agent Pascual Perez to a three-year, $5.7-million contract. Perez was 9-13 for Montreal last season and is 64-62 lifetime.

Steinbrenner predicted the fans will eventually rebel against the higher salaries.

“It will probably be the cab drivers or the cops,” he said. “The fans. They’ll say, ‘enough is enough.’ They’ll realize a ballplayer will make more in one year than him and 10 of his friends will make in their lives.”