Quantum Leap

In less than five years the average salary of baseball's highest-paid player has jumped 196.5%, from Ken Griffey Jr.'s 1996 contract with the Mariners to Alex Rodriguez's new deal, negotiated by agent Scott Boras (above), with the Rangers. Rodriguez's contract also accounts for the largest percentage increase in the highest-paid player's average salary since Albert Belle became the first man to average more than $10 million dollars a season in '96. Here are the terms of the last II contracts that made their recipients baseball's top earners.