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Leagues and Governing Bodies

BOSTON GLOBE'S PETER GAMMONS ON MLB AT THE MILLENNIUM

          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).

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