Why are Tony and Sam living in squaler at the start of the series

[TMC]

This may sound naïve, but I immediately figured that Tony having played in Major League Baseball relatively recently, would have a reasonably comfortable income. So I don't completely understand why he and Sam are living in small, dingy apartment in Brooklyn before they moved in with Angela.

Granted, I don't know exactly how well pro baseball players were paid in say, the 1970s-early '80s (which would've presumably, been when he was playing for the St. Louis Cardinals). And he didn't have a long career in the majors given his shoulder injury. And Mona did say in the pilot that Tony had been working odd jobs since his he had to retire from baseball and his wife died.

I do remember in the 1989 film Major League, a woman asks Tom Berenger's character Jake Taylor about his salary, since she naturally assumes that all professional baseball players are "rich". And Jake has to inform the woman that he makes the Major League Baseball minimum, which would've been within $62,500-$68,000 in 1988-89.