A big payday, but then a bigger collapse
Sporting News photo
Detroit Tigers first baseman Cecil Fielder becomes baseball’s highest-paid player 31 years ago today as he signs a five-year, $36 million contract with the Detroit Tigers.
Of course, that distinction is only temporary as baseball’s salaries – just as they are today – continue to spike with each subsequent signing of an All-Star like Fielder.
Fielder’s new annual average pay is $7.2 million, which back in 1993 is a great payday for a player coming off a three-year span in which he hits 130 home runs, while also leading the major leagues with 389 runs batted in.
Fielder’s production, though, slips over the next three seasons from 1993-95 as he produces a modest – by his standards anyway – 89 homers and 289 RBIs.
Detroit then flips Fielder to the New York Yankees midway through the 1996 season for onetime All-Star but now underproducing outfielder-designated hitter Ruben Sierra and minor league pitcher Matt Drews.
Fielder remains with the Yankees through 1997, batting .260 in 151 games for them with 26 homers and 98 RBIs as he finishes out the final season-plus of the initial five-year, $36 million contract he signs 31 years ago today with Detroit.
Fielder, a free agent after the 1997 season, does not fare as well on his next deal, signing a one-year, $2.8 million contract with the Anaheim Angels in what turns out to be his last season in the majors.
He hits 17 homers in his final season with the Angels before playing his last game just eight days before his 35th birthday in 1998.
For his career, Cecil Fielder earns $46.9 million, a seemingly nice sum of money if not for what happens next as his life rapidly falls apart after he stops playing.
His homelife falls apart. His marriage ends in divorce. His son – future All-Star first baseman Prince Fielder – stops talking with him. His gambling debts go up as his investments go bad. His creditors chase him from coast to coast.
Eventually, Fielder declares bankruptcy.
All within 10 years of his final game in 1998.
“Gambling caused Cecil Fielder’s empire to collapse,” Al Arostegui later tells the Detroit News.
Arostegui is the realtor who in 1995 sells to Fielder his 50-room mansion in Melbourne, Fla., for $3.7 million. The property has long since moved on to other owners.
“This isn’t a story of a hero who went bad, but a hero who got sick,” Arostegui says. “For Cecil, gambling is a disease. It’s like a cancer of some sort that ate away his wealth.”