Major League Baseball

Larry Barnett pulled up his socks and said his umpiring crew would not comment. Greg Kosc sat nearby in the umpires' room at Camden Yards, nodding in silence.Barnett reportedly is one of five umpires who withdrew his resignation in defiance of union chief Richie Phillips. Kosc reportedly agreed to quit, changed his mind, then changed it back again.Two men on the same crew, two men on different sides of a fight that Phillips created, maybe even craved. Barnett apparently will keep his job after Sept.

There are two things that seem to be certain about the current home run derby: Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and perhaps Ken Griffey will apparently apply the most serious challenges ever to Roger Maris' 37-year-old single-season record, and Major League Baseball will endeavor to get as many of their at-bats into a national forum as possible.How it all will happen is up in the air.The reason for the uncertainty is simple: Baseball is not like, for instance, the NFL, where all games are distributed nationally.

The search for a baseball commissioner is over. It did not stray an inch from where it began.Bud Selig, who has served in the role of commissioner for nearly six years without having the title, has decided to accept the job he had resisted taking, several people in ownership and high-ranking positions in Major League Baseball said yesterday.Two people, one a high-ranking official in baseball and one who is not in baseball but has close contacts with people in the sport's hierarchy, said an announcement could be made by the All-Star Game, which is July 7. An owner said it could be forthcoming in two to four weeks.

Six years behind the NHL, 12 years behind the NBA, and that's if Major League Baseball gets its act together in time for the 2004 Summer Olympics.The players want it to happen. The International Olympic Committee wants it to happen. The sport needs it to happen.Imagine Barry Bonds and Ken Griffey playing for the United States. Pedro and Ramon Martinez pitching for the Dominican. The Alomar brothers, Bernie Williams, Juan Gonzalez and Ivan Rodriguez slugging for Puerto Rico.Far-fetched? Not anymore.

If you're one of those people who believe that baseball salaries and stadium prices are already too high, you can't have been too happy to hear last about last week's decision by ABC and NBC to end the year-old Baseball Network.Why? Because, contrary to public perception, it's television money and not ticket prices that pay the biggest part of the freight for sports salaries, and the end of The Baseball Network pretty much ensures that there will be fewer TV bucks floating around for the foreseeable future.

NEW YORK -- Just the mention of baseball is enough to send Fox Sports President David Hill screaming like a banshee and ducking for cover."Ahhhh. Not baseball," Hill complained yesterday during a luncheon as Fox officials met with advertisers to unveil their fall schedule.It's all for dramatic effect, you understand, but the point is effective. Hill, whose network hasn't shied away from anything in almost a year of telecasting sports, is justifiably wary of anything that has to do with baseball.

As the soon-to-be-lamented Baseball Network prepares to set sail on its final voyage tomorrow night, one of its captains is taking steps to make sure no one else comes aboard too soon.ABC, which joined with NBC and Major League Baseball to form The Baseball Network last season, then angrily announced its intention to pull out of the venture after this season, has told Fox and Turner, which are expected to bid on portions of a new contract, that they cannot negotiate with baseball until Jan. 9, when ABC's exclusive negotiating window closes.

Orioles owner Peter Angelos has been saying for months that Orioles fans are dead set against the use of replacement players. Yesterday, he released the results of an independent poll that backed up his opinion.The poll of Orioles season-ticket holders, conducted recently by Peter D. Hart Research Associates, showed that an overwhelming majority of the club's fans disapprove of Major League Baseball's plan to use replacement players if the 5 1/2 -month players strike does not end by Opening Day."

NEW YORK -- NBC Sports president Dick Ebersol took a few puffs on an expensive cigar the other day while greeting reporters, but he was hardly in a celebratory mood, at least not where baseball is concerned.Ebersol, whose network would be telecasting its first regular-season baseball game in five years tomorrow night if not for the strike, seemed resigned to the notion that the national pastime might be done for the year."I think there's a chance there'll be baseball this year, but I wouldn't be shocked if the next baseball game was next spring," said Ebersol.

BASEBALL HEAVENA pre-All-Star game bonanza called All-Star Fanfest starts today at the Baltimore Convention Center and adjoining Festival Hall and runs through Tuesday. The baseball theme park features exhibits, displays and hands-on activities, including what promoters say is the largest memorabilia display ever to appear outside Cooperstown, N.Y. (home of baseball's Hall of Fame), and autograph signings by past and present Major League baseball players.Step up to the plate and take a swing at some pitches from Jim Palmer.

I applaud Major League Baseball for taking another step toward making its draft an event for fans. I look forward to seeing the qualities of Dustin Ackley and Aaron Crow debated in prime time. (For more, go to baltimoresun.com/toydept)

Baseball Seasons 8 p.m. [MLB Network] The program looks back at 1968 - the Year of the Pitcher. Bob Gibson (left) and Denny McLain were among the dominant performers. Carl Yastrzemski won the American League batting title with a .301 average. The next season, Major League Baseball lowered the mound.

NEW YORK - Last night's All-Star Game at Yankee Stadium in New York ended too late to be included in this edition. A full report on the game can be found at baltimoresun.com. At his annual appearance before the Baseball Writers Association of America, commissioner Bud Selig said yesterday that the sport continues to prosper, partially because the attention is on the field of play these days and not peripheral issues that have haunted the game. Still, Selig acknowledged that some off-field matters still concern him, including federal investigations into bonus-skimming in the Dominican Republic and a gambling ring that reportedly enveloped former Orioles national crosschecker Alan Marr, who was fired in June.

Eight days after a report alleged that Jay Gibbons received shipments of steroids and human growth hormone from 2003 to 2005, the Orioles outfielder met with baseball officials at their headquarters in New York City. Gibbons, making his first public comments since the story broke Sept. 9, told The Sun, "I met with Major League Baseball representatives [yesterday] and was happy to answer all of their questions." He would not offer further comment on any aspect of the meeting or SI.com's allegations that he was among the clientele of Orlando-based Signature Pharmacy, which was raided earlier this year.

And now back to our regularly scheduled sports media notebook, but there's no need to TiVo it. Comcast SportsNet doesn't carry Orioles games anymore, but it still has plenty of Cal Ripken Jr. Hall of Fame coverage. It will run a series of features daily on SportsNite starting Sunday, and Chick Hernandez and Brent Harris will report from Cooperstown, N.Y., starting Wednesday. Comcast SportsNet also has commissioned a song for the occasion, a Ripken-centric version of Terry Cashman's "Talkin' Baseball," written and performed by Cashman.

If you're a truly committed baseball fan - or just a baseball fan who truly needs to be committed - you've probably spent a lot of time thinking about the most appropriate way to honor your favorite team when you head off to that big ESPN Zone in the sky. So I don't have to tell you that your options have been severely limited by the lack of officially licensed funeral merchandise bearing the logo of your most cherished major league franchise. Not anymore. Thanks to a recent licensing agreement between Major League Baseball and a company called Eternal Images, obsessing about your mortality just became a lot more fun ... and carrying your fanatical allegiance to the Orioles or some other major league club officially into eternity just became a whole lot easier.

Major League Baseball purchased full-page advertisements in major newspapers last week in which it announced the appointment of a prominent scientist to develop a urine test to detect human growth hormone. But other scientists are skeptical that such a test can be created for the relatively small amount of money baseball is pledging to invest so far. Baseball commissioner Bud Selig said in the ad that athletes' use of human growth hormone "represents a threat to all sports everywhere." Selig added that "science can provide new ways to combat" players who use such banned performance boosters, and that baseball was naming Don Catlin of UCLA to conduct a study on detecting hGH. Baseball has initially agreed to devote about $500,000 - an amount that Penn State University steroids expert Charles Yesalis called "chump change."

This isn't 20/20 hindsight. I predicted at the outset that Major League Baseball would regret embarking on the wide-ranging steroid investigation that was ordered by commissioner Bud Selig and undertaken by former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell last month. Now, I'm sure of it. The probe already has created new friction between MLB and the Major League Baseball Players Association, which has labeled the investigation a "substantial disruption" to the sport's labor relationship in an e-mail that was sent to agents and obtained by Newsday and the New York Post.

Baseball commissioner Bud Selig drew a line in the quicksand when he announced that Major League Baseball would not participate in any celebration of Barry Bonds' impending 715th home run. It was a deft political move, because it telegraphed the disapproval of MLB and its corporate sponsors for Bonds and his alleged knee-deep involvement in the sport's steroid quagmire without openly taking a position on the controversial slugger's proximity to one...

The inaugural World Baseball Classic is over, and one can presume that the flag-waving, sign-holding Japanese fan base has finally strolled giddily away from San Diego's Petco Park wearing smiles and plenty of official Classic merchandise. So now that it is done, what has the Classic - the 16-team international tournament dreamed up by baseball commissioner Bud Selig and plunked down in the middle of spring training - taught us? Well, most obviously, Americans aren't as openly passionate about the sport - or at least this preconceived version - as those in baseball-crazy outposts around the world.