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Wednesday, May 06, 2009

Wall Street vs. the Minors

Hale, a 21-year-old junior from Marietta, Georgia, majoring in operations research and financial engineering, said he’s already decided that he’d rather play minor-league baseball than return to Princeton and a possible career on Wall Street.

“I don’t know if I’m in for those hours, so we’ll see where baseball takes me,” the 6-foot-2, 195-pound right-hander said in an interview at Princeton’s Clarke Field. “It’s probably a better option right now with the whole economy, and it’s my dream, so I obviously want to do this.”

As a baseball player drafted in the late second or third round, his skills would earn him a one-time signing bonus of $400,000-$600,000, said Baseball America Co-Editor in Chief John Manuel. The major-league minimum salary in 2008 was $390,000.

Entry-level Wall Street jobs for Ivy Leaguers are paying in the $100,000 to $200,000 range, according to eFinancialCareers.com. Postings by employers on the Web site were down 47 percent in April compared with the same month last year.

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