FOR ALL YOU DO - THIS BUD'S FOR YOU

Historically, I haven't been the biggest fan of Bud Selig's but I think in hindsight, you have to give the devil his due.

We're in the equivalent of the NFL's 12th week and very few teams are clearly out of the playoff hunt. So much for the competetive balance issue that seemed to be such a major item a few years ago that we were thinking of contracting the Twins, Devil Rays, Marlins, Expos (now the Nationals). Nice that baseball didn't do that to fans in those areas.

Does the salary structure need additional tweaking, maybe. The compensation of lost free agents with first round draft picks seems to be having an effect on teams at the trade deadline. Front-line players in walk-years of contracts (a la Soriano) are being held onto by teams rather than just dumped for low-level prospects. Teams know they will get a late first round pick that they can use on a collegiate player, who in many cases, turn out to be nearly Major League ready. At worst, they are holding out for near Major League ready prospects at the deadline in exchange.

Thus, there is less drop off in talent for some of the lower revenue teams when they do lose these free agents.

The World Baseball Classic, I believe is going to stimulate world wide interest and grow the game not only from a fan standpoint but from a talent pool standpoint. Players in other countries are seeing first-hand that their peers can comptete against Major League talent and have to think "Why not them?". I believe very soon we will see the talent from other countries begin to come stateside to compete is droves. Very much in the way European talent is washing to the NBA shores.

Can they do more from a PR standpoint or helping youth sports more, and not just in areas where kids are running away from the sport, but in neighborhooods where it flourishes as well? Yes. Can they do for softball what the NBA does for women's basketball and cultivate a new fan base? Yes.

We'll see what the future holds, but maybe the sports has been more visionary in some regards than it has been given credit for.