BASEBALL Average salary falls for 1st time in years

Players on rosters averaged $2.49 million per season.
NEW YORK (AP) -- Just a few days into the season, baseball already has produced a startling statistic: The average salary dropped for the first time in nearly a decade.
Not that major leaguers will be sweating to make their mortgage payments. Despite the 3 percent drop from the start of last season, players on opening day rosters averaged $2.49 million, according to a study by The Associated Press.
The New York Yankees bucked the trend, pushing their payroll up to a record $183 million, led by Alex Rodriguez, whose $21.7 million salary topped the majors for the fourth straight year.
Boston, forever chasing New York in the standings and at the box office, was second at $125 million.
And then came everyone else. Anaheim was third at $101 million, just ahead of the New York Mets. Philadelphia, fifth at $93 million, has a payroll about half that of the Yankees.
Milwaukee, the team controlled by the family of baseball commissioner Bud Selig, has the lowest payroll at $27.5 million.
Rare drop
The average salary, which was $2.56 million at the start of last season, hadn't dropped since 1995, immediately following the 7 1/2-month strike that wiped out the World Series for the first time in 90 years.
Since the start of the free-agent era after the 1976 season, the only other year salaries dropped was 1987, when owners were found by an arbitrator to have conspired against free agents.
Baseball's new labor contract, agreed to late in the 2002 season, had new debt regulations and also imposed a luxury tax. Last year, the Yankees were the only team that had to pay the tax.
NBA players have the highest average salary, $4.9 million this season, according to the preliminary estimate by their union. NHL players averaged $1.79 million in 2002-03, the latest season in which their union has figures available. NFL players averaged $1.26 million last year, according to their union.
Both the NBA and NFL operate under salary caps.