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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 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. 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 for sure what position Ten played, 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 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 Victoria 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 a pretty good player. 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.
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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
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Imagine coming
across this 1911 baseball card and trying to figure out that “Ten Million”
label.
Ten Million with Tacoma
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