The power behind baseball's throne

You can hear the city's heartbeat from Paul Beeston's corner office; the honk and screech of cabs squirreling up New York's Park Avenue, the rhythm of a steel band playing across the street, the occasional random voice that fights its way through the din.

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You can hear them all because, 18 stories up, through sun, gloom, chill and sweat, Beeston keeps his window open, as much because of what it lets out as what it lets in.

"These don't bother you, do they?'' asks Beeston, 53, chief operating officer of Major League Baseball, holding up a half-smoked cigar that has become his trademark. "I hope these don't bother you."

He lifts a match to his stubby stogey and leans back into a chair