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Home FAQ Samples Endorsements Radio Show Contact Us _______________ 2-strike hitting spitball history Baseball's Song	Click the PDF icon to see what the email PDF attachment would look like. The First Ten Million Ballplayer Over 80 years before outfielder Albert Belle signed a free agent contract with the Chicago White Sox to become the first player to earn over ten million a year, baseball already had had a “Ten Million” ballplayer. He never played a day in the majors, but he was a good college player for the University of Washington before starting a minor league career in 1911 at age 21. After just one season in the minors he showed enough promise as an outfielder that the Cleveland Indians purchased his contract, but a knee injury kept this Ten Million player from making the team. He returned to the Pacific Northwest where he continued his minor league career which included stops in Spokane, Tacoma, Sioux City, and Moose Jaw, which were mostly Class B leagues. That's hardly the resume one would expect from a Ten Million ballplayer, but you see, Ten Million wasn't his salary, it was his legal name! His father was E.C. Million, and his eccentric mother convinced E.C. and his wife to name her grandson, "Ten." Million retired from baseball in 1915 and moved to Seattle where he remained involved in sports. He was a salesman for Spalding Sporting Goods, and he umpired high school baseball games and refereed in football and basketball. He later became a salesman for the Ford Auto Company. In the 1920s, Ford produced its 10 millionth car and it supposedly was shipped to Seattle so Ten Million could be the one to sell it. A Seattle newspaper ran an article and photo about the ten millionth Ford which was sold by the Ford salesman named Ten Million. If Ten Million's name was an omen of where baseball salaries were headed, we can be thankful that his daughter never went into baseball. Her friends would call her Dixie, but her real name was Decillion Million. The same eccentric grandmother who was behind the naming of Ten Million gave $50 to Ten and his wife Christine to name their daughter Decillion Millon. Research notes: My information on Ten Million (1889-1964) is sketchy and I would be interested to learn more. For example, I don’t know what position Ten usually played in the outfield, and I’d like to know if there is anything behind the unconfirmed stories that have Ten associated with the early St. Louis Cardinals. One story claims he actually played briefly for the Cardinals, but that never happened unless under an assumed name. Another story has him in spring training with the 1908 Cardinals but his chance to make the team ended with a broken leg. That seems very unlikely. Ten was born in Mt. Vernon, Washington, graduated from high school in 1908 and then attended the University of Washington. It would have been highly unusual for a high school boy from the Northwest to be in camp with the Cardinals. However, in 1908 teams were not above trying out players with little experience, and the Cardinals of that era were a crummy, perhaps desperate, last place team. Ten could have been in St. Louis on some sort of vacation, talked his way into a tryout, made the spring squad, then broke his leg, returned to the Northwest, completed high school, and gone on to college. Again, extremely unlikely but not completely impossible. The baseball card of Ten Million with the Victoria Bees in the 1911 North Western League is known as an OBAK “cigarette card.”  The American Tobacco Company had a brand of cigarettes called OBAK that was popular on the Pacific coast, and they did a series of cards from 1909-1911 featuring players from the Pacific Coast League (6 teams) and the North Western League (4 teams). The fact that Ten Million had his own card in his first year in the minors suggests he was considered a talented player. He was one of the Bees’ youngest players (21), led the team in hits, and had their third best batting average (.275). OBAK actually did two cards of Million in 1911. The other is what they call a “cabinet card” which means it used a photographic image rather than a drawing. I would be interested in getting an image of his cabinet card, and I’d be delighted to have the image of Ten Million selling Ford’s ten millionth car as well. Perhaps the most talented player named Million was Doug Million who was High School Player of the Year in 1994, the first round pick of the Colorado Rockies, and the seventh overall pick in the whole draft. The Rockies passed on the PR opportunity to sign him for a cool million and instead gave him a $905,000 signing bonus. Sadly, Million died very young at age 21, the victim of a severe asthma attack in 1997. Doug never got higher than AA ball, and we are still waiting for the first major leaguer named Million. A fan named Doug Charles lives about ten minutes from Ten Million’s hometown of Mt. Vernon. In a local second-hand shop he came across a pre-World War I Spalding bat that is an engraved “Ten Million” model. He was kind enough to send pictures with permission to use them and the story of his find.	By the writer & researcher of A Page from Baseball’s Past, a one of a kind baseball column reflecting 21 years of major league experience Diamondappraised.com “Craig Wright is a brilliant analyst of the game. You know how that goes – ‘intelligent’ means that he agrees with me; ‘brilliant’ means that I agree with him but I never would have thought of it myself.” Bill James Senior Baseball Advisor Boston Red Sox ______________ Imagine coming across this 1911 baseball card and trying to figure out that “Ten Million” label. Ten Million with Tacoma
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