A natural consequence of the global game of baseball--loss of interest

Mike Vaccaro notes fallout from the global game of basketball. As baseball aspires to basketball's international growth, the same result may follow:

• (NY Post): "We are just getting a taste of what they already know in Japan, where the notion of sporting colonialism

• already has gotten a foothold and threatened to erode

• the very core of the nation's passion and interest.

The sampling has come in basketball this summer, a smattering of second- and third-tier players opting to chase big money all across the globe, bypassing the ages-old notion that a nice living in the NBA will always trump a killing in Europe....

• But what happens if - when - someone like Kobe Bryant makes that leap?

Early in these Olympics, Bryant told the Boston Globe that he would be willing to listen if a European club made him a $50 million-per-year offer next summer, when he can opt out of his current Lakers contract. A few days later, he had this to say to Yahoo! Sports:

• "I think free agency now is becoming a global thing.

When players become free agents, the team they're currently with, their competition is no longer the rest of the teams in the NBA. It's global. The market's opened up.

So we'll just have to see how the league responds to it.""

• The notion of playing for one's country becomes secondary. As Mr. Vaccaro notes, globalism "erodes the core of the nation's passion and interest." Yet this is the swamp into which Bud Selig is charging with his oil burning band of flying globalists.

Tweet Stumbleupon StumbleUpon