TIME's cover this week features Cardinals 1B Mark
McGwire and Mariners CF Ken Griffey, Jr. under the header,
"Outta Here." In "The Fun Is Back," Joel Stein examines the
MLB season under the sub-head, "As McGwire and Griffey Chase
The Home-Run Record, Baseball Regains Its Old Luster. Will
It Last?" Stein: "There have been plenty of home runs to
fire people up. But don't think you're seeing the epic
resurgence of baseball. What you're seeing is an amazing
confluence of talent that is not likely to be duplicated.
Commissioner [Bud] Selig can't afford just to collect his
nickel from this freak show and wait for the next one. He
and the other custodians of the game need to speed up play,
lower ticket prices, market to women and minorities and get
inner-city kids playing the game" (TIME, 7/27 issue). In
DC, Farhi & Maske wrote, "Baseball is back, or at least
continues to be on the mend since the bruising players'
strike of 1994 and 1995. While several traditionally weak
franchises are still flagging, the National Pastime overall
appears to have regained much of the ground burned up by the
strike." But there are "still plenty of reasons to ask
whether baseball can sustain its briefly, rediscovered place
in the sun. As a business, the game still suffers from deep
economic problems that won't be solved with a few more home
runs." With an aging customer base and "struggling smaller-
city franchises," MLB still faces challenges. Farhi & Maske
added that "almost all" of the 10.5% gain in ticket sales
this season has come from the D'Backs and Devil Rays.
Without the new teams, total attendance would be up by
"just" 381,000 or 1% (WASHINGTON POST, 7/19).
REVENUE SHARING, BY GEORGE: Yankees Owner George
Steinbrenner: "I don't mind revenue sharing, to the extent
that we're doing it now. It's not what I want to see
continued forever, so that a guy can just sit back and say,
'Well, they're going to give me $13 million or $10 million
that the other teams don't get.'" I want to see their fans
support them. But if [the fans] ... don't come ... let's
get that team out of there" ("Page 1," CNN, 7/18).
