Ryan Doherty
Doherty, was born and raised in Toms River, New Jersey, grew up playing baseball, including at Toms River High School East. He was named the 2002 Gatorade Player of the Year for the state of New Jersey and was awarded a partial scholarship to play baseball at the University of Notre Dame for the Fighting Irish. He is believed to have been the tallest player in the history of the National Collegiate Athletic Association baseball history. While at Notre Dame, he did not play collegiate volleyball due to his baseball commitments. In 2002, he was named an All-American.
List of highest paid Major League Baseball players
The highest-paid player in Major League Baseball (MLB) from the 2018 Major League Baseball season is Los Angeles Dodgers' pitcher Clayton Kershaw with an annual salary of $34,000,000 on a 7 year contract for $215,000,000. MLB does not have a hard salary cap, instead employing a luxury tax which applies to teams whose total payroll exceeds certain set thresholds for a given season. Free agency did not exist in MLB prior to the end of the reserve clause in the 1970s, allowing owners before that time to wholly dictate the terms of player negotiations and resulting in significantly lower salaries. Babe Ruth, widely regarded as one of the greatest baseball players ever, earned an estimated $910,696 ($ inflation-adjusted from 1931 dollars) over his entire playing career. When asked whether he thought he deserved to earn $80,000 a year ($ inflation-adjusted), while the president, Herbert Hoover, had a $75,000 salary, Ruth famously remarked, "What the hell has Hoover got to do with it? Besides, I had a better year than he did."