NUMEROLOGY | A League Above

FANS BOUGHT 73,053,807 MLB TICKETS LAST YEAR. DOWN 0.45% FROM 2009. THE AVERAGE MLB PLAYER WILL MAKE MAJOR CASH COWS $3.305,393 BOSTON RED SOX THIS YEAR, 38 S272 MILLION THAT'S A HECK OF A LOT LESS THAN SUPERSTAR YANKS LIKE ... MAJOR LEAGUE REVENUE HIT IN REVENUE ALEX RODRIGUEZ $32 MILLION $6.1 BILLION CHICAGO CUBS $258 MILLION eS AND C.C. SABATHIA $24.3 MILLION UBS LAST YEAR, UP 4% FROM 2009. IN REVENUE At least 50 everyday expressions can be credited to baseball, AMONG THE WORST-SELLING TEAMS: including "playing hardball," "hitting it out of the park," and "Say it ain't so, Joe!" 100% of them are cliché. 12 TORONTO BLUE JAYS 1.6 MILLION TICKETS CLEVELAND INDIANS 1.4 MILLION TICKETS 24 The New York Yankees tout 27 World Series titles, making them baseball's most successful franchise. But wins don't come cheap. The team's 2011 payroll will top $201 MILLION-almost $30 million more than the second-highest MLB team's. LET'S HEAR IT FOR LITTLE LEAGUE: LAST YEAR, THERE WERE In modern U.S. ballparks, home plate must sit AT LEAST 250 FEET from MAN 2,020,125 Movies about baseball have netted almost $1 BILLION at the U.S. box office. The all-stars: the nearest outfield fence-a cinch for late Yankee Babe Ruth, who once hit a 575-FOOT HOME RUN. Field of Dreams (1989) $64.4 MILLION PLAYERS ON KIDDIE BASEBALL TEAMS. A typical family of four spends $197.35 on a ballpark outing. Some average concession prices: Budweiser, Chevrolet, and MasterCard all shelled out A League of Their Own (1992) SI07.5 MILLION at least $450,000 to advertise during Fox's 2010 World Series telecast. Alas, American viewership averaged just 14.3 MILLION- The Rookie (2002) $75.6 MILLION the second-lowest count in HOT DOG $3.88 TEAM CAP $14.35 BEER $5.81 SODA $3.59 series history.