In the final installment of the BOSTON GLOBE's four-
part series, "The State of Baseball," Peter Gammons writes a
front-page feature on the future of MLB, entitled "Next
Step: The Game Goes Global." The "turn of the century
should bring the dawn of a long-overlooked move across the
world. ... And 1-3 years into the 21st century, baseball
finally will embark on some form of World Cup, likely
sometime in mid-March as an overture to the season."
Gammons: "Finally, as the 90s draw to a close, it appears
that someone other than Peter O'Malley, Pat Gillick, and
Larry Lucchino sees what Bud Selig didn't. For 20 years,
baseball tried to market to the same demographics from
whence its audience came in the '50s and '60s -- suburban
America. ... [But MLB] has drawn its most zealous fans from
the ethnic traditions that helped the sport proliferate. ...
Baseball's potential boom is in the Hispanic- and Asian-
Americans, and at the millennium, 35-45 percent of the major
league players will have some kind of Hispanic background.
... The international boom will have refocused the sport's
leaders on its audience by 2000" (BOSTON GLOBE, 8/13).
MLB IN 2000: By the turn of the century, Gammons
writes the "impact of the new stadiums will be fully felt,"
with new parks in Detroit, Milwaukee, Seattle, Anaheim, San
Francisco, Tampa Bay and Arizona, while Cincinnati, Houston,
Minnesota and Florida "should have them under construction."
While Acting Commissioner Bud Selig and MLBPA Exec Dir
Donald Fehr "almost certainly will still be in power ...
rehashing old wars," the "impact of entertainment experts
from Fox, Disney, Time Warner, etc., will move the base of
power away from the old collusion and labor warriors. ...
There isn't going to be another strike, because the Fox and
Disney people have a larger view than Wal-Mart clerks."
Gammons concludes: "After a quarter-century of trying to
cope with a real-market world, baseball finally may have
reached the crest of a long, hard climb by the millennium.
When, and if, it gets there, its people will look out and
see that the valley is greener than those who led them to
collude and strike ever dreamed" (BOSTON GLOBE, 8/13).
