Let's turn the World Series into a genuine World Series.  Start with a division of the major leagues in Japan.  Much of their play would be intra-division, of course.  But each Japanese based team could make a long road trip to the United States.  And several American teams could visit Japan during the season.  We already see exhibition tours; let's make them mean something.  Like the merger of the AFL-NFL into the Super Bowl age, this would be a blockbuster boost for baseball.

The infrastructure already exists in Japan.  Great Japanese ballplayers already litter the rosters of teams in the States.  And some would still choose to play for a team in the United States even with a division of their own.  Some Japanese star will still want to play for the Yankees.

Canada is already in.  Latin America produces so many great players, we need to find some way to support a team south of the border.  Perhaps starting in Mexico City would minimize the geographic complications.  Eventually we might even be able to figure out what to do with Cuba!  If Little League can host an international World Series, major league baseball certainly should be able to find a way with all their resources.

This would also be a better way to perk up the All Star Game than the homefield advantage promotion that motivates only some of the players and doesn't do too much for the fans.  A whole new contingent of stars could parade on the world baseball scene.

Baseball is already a game with universal appeal.  No matter how the athletes develop over the century, still the balance remains the same.  In Track, athletes keep running faster times.  In baseball, if the runner gets faster, the catcher's arm gets stronger at the same time.  If the pitcher gets faster, the hitters find some new steroids.  Oops, anyone can make a mistake; I meant to say the hitters get stronger too. 

The beauty of baseball is how it allows you to compare the accomplishments of teams across the ages.  The 1955 Dodgers redeemed years of frustrations against the Yankees.  The Red Sox do the same in 2004.  After the Cubs win the World Series, the Mariners will have enough years to be the next curse breaker.  And then a Japanese team. 

What a success story to go from excluding African American ballplayers to fielding teams around the globe.  Let's play it out on the world stage.

Fantasy Sports began in our family in 1988.  In a pathetic display of parenting skills, we enlisted our thirteen year old son to submit his eighth grade project as a purported "Study to Determine the Relative Value of Professional Football Players."  Conveniently, he proposed a rating system that neatly corresponded to our Fantasy Football scoring rules.  So he could pore over the sports page in class and compile our results (before the magic of a computer service) all in the name of a school assignment.  He grew up to be a lawyer.

Our eleven year old son also participated in the league that first year and my brother chastised us for promoting gambling to grade schoolers.  My wife not only didn't shut this operation down but remains the lone female participant in the twelve team league.  She has won two Super Bowl and is playing for a third title this week, having figured out how to be involved with her three sons in an all male household.  None of her boys has captured more than one championship, much to their dismay and their mother's glee. 

Of course, some have cast the proverbial aspersions on the level of competition.  A grandfather won one year with help in the draft from a grandson (who had little incentive to aid the competition) and a strategy of making no activation changes except for byes.  And an uncle follows a different theme at each draft.  One year he drafted all Seahawks (not this year, unfortunately for him), another year all Caucasians, then all rookies, etc..  He has never even made it to the Super Bowl and competes regularly in our Toilet Bowl.

Our league has promoted a certain family togetherness.  We get together to bicker about the rules, the scoring system, and trading deadlines.  We accuse each other of exploiting loopholes in the rules to gain unfair advantage.  Of course, in all the seventeen years, we haven't once changed the scoring rules everyone hates because we could never hope to get consensus on anything, let alone something as important as this.  Put families together in a room with Fantasy Football and a little alcohol, and you have the recipe for insults, grudges, and well, everything that family stands for.

Now our sons compete regularly in multiple fantasy leagues and multiple sports.   We have created a monster.  Is Fantasy NASCAR racing out there somewhere?  Does Fantasy Boxing or Wrestling exist yet?  We have franchise owners who spend more on fantasy tip sheets, magazines, and services than they can hope to win in our low stakes pool.  In the future, will society forego the expense of building stadiums and fielding professional teams and instead just feed data in a computer to come up with results for fantasy leagues? 

Burning questions for best bloggers to answer:

 1.  If Carl Everett doesn't believe in dinosaurs, how is he going to be able to play with Jamie Moyer?

 2.  Should the NFL make late season games more meaningful by constructing playoff payouts so that escalating monetary awards are made based on a team's total wins?

 3.  How can the FCC seriously object to the use of "sex" in Richie Sexson's first name and is the Mariner firstbaseman really thinking of moving to Sirius radio? 

 4.  Should Major League Baseball institute a ten run rule?

 5.  Should the NFL make late season games more meaningful by allowing teams to start playoff games (except Super Bowl) with extra points based on victory differentials, e.g., team with 13 wins starts game with 2-0 lead when playing a team with eleven victories?

 6.  How funny is it that professional athletes so often list their weight ending in a "nine" like product prices (e.g., Shaq O'Neal is claiming 339)?

 7.  Would it be considered rubbing it in if the Yankees sign a Red Sox bat boy to a two year contract?  How about a one year contract?

 8.  Should the NFL make late season games more meaningful by providing sex boat parties for every additional team victory after playoff spot is clinched?   

 9.  Should Randy Moss be traded for Ron Artest?

10.  Should we declare a one week amnesty for coaches to clean up all the old lies on resumes and start over with a clean slate? 

As a celebrated Fox Sports blogger, I am literally swamped with questions, especially ones that stump the experts, to wit:

Whizzer asks:  "Why do so many sportscasters over analyze things like a one point defeat in basketball by talking about how one team dominated this or that when really it just came down to the luck of the last shot?"

Stamps:  I have a much more complete analysis coming out in my book Stamp of Approval but the short answer is that sportscasters get paid by the word.

Grizzer asks:  "Your column on Hall of Fame Guidelines isn't suggesting Pete Rose should be in the Hall of Fame, is it?"

Stamps:  Actually I'm proposing a Hall of Shame for all sports combined where Pete can feel comfortable with other great athletes like O.J. and iceskaters who whack the knees of competitors.

Pizzer asks:  "Why do Redsox and Cubs fans get all this publicity for suffering under long standing curses when a city like Seattle has never even seen a World Series let alone a Super Bowl?"

Stamps:  Most sports publicity in America naturally goes to cities in the continental United States.

Fizzler asks:  "When is hockey going to finally resolve that strike and get back on the ice?"

Stamps:  Are you from Seattle?

Sizzler asks:  "Does Ichiro really deserve so much credit for breaking George Sisler's record for hits in a season?"

Stamps:  Not until he can prove he can put up those kind of numbers while playing cards in the clubhouse and gambling in after hours clubs.

Guzzler asks:  "How can they take alcohol out of the Pats-Jets game on Monday?

Stamps:  They can't.

Fuzzler asks:  "How come baseball's designated hitter comes under such attack when football has all its players going one way and sends specialists like punters and nickel backs in and out of the game with impunity?"

Stamps:  Precisely because baseball operates with punity.

Puzzler asks:  "How do you find the time to write a column on Christmas Eve?"

Stamps:  Have a happy holiday!

A couple of days ago, the Seattle Sonics won a home game.  This was something to celebrate so I followed the revelers into a local watering hole.  After we climbed out, we went to a bar.  Unfortunately, I was recognized as a famous FoxSports blogger.

A stout fellow in a green sweatshirt approached and suggested, "Why don't you write a column advocating a Hall of Fame for the best baseball players who ever lived?"

I was a little too weary, leery, and beery to savor the prospect of entering conversation with another half witty sports nut but took the bait and asked, "Have you ever heard of Cooperstown?"

"Sure," says Greenman, "but they don't have all the best ballplayers, just the popular ones that meet the high moral standards of some hypocritical sportswriters."

The negative emphasis on "sportswriters" hung in the air like the digestive aromas of a post game pressroom buffet.  Hating myself for travelling this well worn path, I attempted cotemptuous dismissal, "The Hall is clearly littered with unpopular players and moral midgets like Ty Cobb.  Throwing games like Shoeless Joe Jackson or gambling on baseball like Pete Rose crosses a line that everyone except professional wrestlers should recognize."

"So, Ty Cobb never gambled on baseball?"

"Not to my knowledge," I offered in my best legal voice.

"But, if Cobb, say, bet a buck that his team was going to win a baseball game and we just found out about it now, would we kick him out of the Hall retroactively?"

As the crowd looked to me for an answer, I smugly obliged, "I'm sure that a dollar would be considered 'di minimus' and hardly a true violation."

Greenman was not the least impressed with my Latin and asked, "So what would be 'di minimus' for A-Rod?  Ten thousand bucks?  How come you're dodging my questions?"

"I try to answer any question that isn't rhetorical," I replied.

Greenman closed in and asked with more sincerity, "I just want to know, why can't we just send people to jail for illegal acts and ban players from baseball for activities seriously detrimental to the game but still have a place to view the best players and their accomplishments on the field?  I bet you can't write an article on that."

I confidently answered, "Betting is required to get in the blogging Hall of Fame and so indeed I will take your bet and write such an article tomorrow." 

I exited quickly and considered that he would have to cover his end of the bet by paying my tab. 

Significantly, TO's agent (who prefers to be nameless and shameless for this piece) has not denied the accuracy of the recently leaked information that Terrell Owens is being traded to Golf for Tiger Woods.  OBC commentators rationalized the shocking news: "Owens has discovered that football is much more of a team sport than he realized.  Golf will suit him better, although he is reportedly demanding big bucks for any participation in the Ryder Cup."

Tiger Woods, while a fierce individual competitor himself, is expected to fit in quickly with the Eagles.  He will utilize his chip shot skills to kick all short field goal attempts.  In a telling show of team unity, Tiger will be inviting Donovan McNabb to be his holder.  Woods will also be assuming some of McNabb's duties, especially when the Eagles need a long drive.

Naysayers who liken Tiger's experiment to Michael Jordan's disappointing dalliance with professional baseball will be surprised to learn, as we were, that Tiger was a Heisman Trophy winner while at Stanford.  This was difficult to confirm because apparently Woods played football under the assumed name of Lion Forest.

The official announcement has been delayed only by some last minute petulance from TO.  He was allegedly heard screaming at his agent, "What is all this focus on Tiger Woods?  This is all about me and how I'm going to scramble that singing VJ so bad he's going to need a vowel movement in that funny name of his."

TO's tirade may only be a gambit to get more money.

Texas and USC are conveniently consensus heirs to the National Championship game in early 2006.  So now shouldn't be a good time to agitate for a playoff system in college football.  But it is.  Without a specific controversy to taint the debate, we can examine the case on its own merits.

College football's tremendous success over the decades has been its own worst enemy.  Without failure to spur corrections, vision clouds over.  No one remotely forecasted the Superbowl as the cultural phenomenon it has become.  It was born merely to stop the bleeding from the bidding war for players caused by the AFL's drive for legitimacy.  But we got so much more.

Like the Superbowl and the major league baseball playoffs, a college football playoff system would far exceed any expectations and leave us wondering what took so long.  March Madness screams out as an example for its sister sport.

Are we seriously worried about the time away from school for our student athletes?  Apparently not for college basketball players and lower division college football players.  College football continues to add games to the schedule.  Yet we can't rearrange bowl games into a playoff format?  Eight teams would command only seven current bowl games.  Four of the first round teams would lose, adding no additional games to their traditional schedule.  That leaves only four teams with an extra game or two.

College football players practice all spring and play and practice all fall anyway.  Playing extra games in the holiday break is hardly an imposition, especially for the ones who leave school early.  Matt Leinart has proven you can win a Heisman Trophy, take a schedule of only Ballroom Dancing, and still find plenty of time to play football.  College basketball players have long seasons and reward us with a long playoff schedule.  What am I missing here?

We have already tinkered with different formulas for rating teams for the big bowls and we have fixed the Rose Bowl impediment.  Why can't we take the next logical step and experiment for one year with a true playoff?  College football would never look back.  They would be the ones adding four first round byes and expanding to twelve entries.

We seem preoccupied with the issue of undefeated teams.  If we have more than two, we try to figure out some way to resolve by a better poll or the radical notion of one extra game.  Does that mean if we have only one undefeated team, we shouldn't even have a post season?  Being undefeated isn't a test for any champions, why are we applying it to a sport of teams with such disparate schedules?  So many sories have gone unwritten.  When Tulane went undefeated, we could have seen a higher ranked foe knock them off as predicted or maybe we could have seen a "Hoosiers" story unfold for the ages.  But no, we end up with an undefeated bowl game winner sitting about seventh in some year-end poll.

Every playoff game generates the excitement of meaning, whether a pro sport (football, hockey, basketball, baseball, etc.) or a college sport  (basketball, baseball, even some divisions of football).  So many college football bowl games mean something only to the students, fans, and alumni of two specific schools.  Even then, their interest would be enhanced by a game with something at stake.

If we like the controversy of the present system, we could still have it with debates over which teams were deserving of spots seven or eight.  But at least, we would capture any team with a legitimate claim to the national title. 

Particularly frustrating is the lack of a vested interest to protect by staying with the status quo.  Oil or religious freedom aren't at stake.  It's not like less money will be made; just the opposite in fact.  College football is like that undefeated Tulane team: great record, very successful, but unfulfilled.   

This week Coach Mike Holmgren was the subject of an unusual rumor that had him saying the Seahawks were looking past this Sunday's tussle in Tennessee: "We're taking two games at a time right now, so we're concentrating on our showdown with Indianapolis on Christmas Eve.  At the rate we're winning, we hope to be taking three games at a time during the Playoffs."

Su####ions about the Holmgren quote surfaced when Shaun Alexander was allegedly heard saying, "Winning a Superbowl is fine but those team awards don't mean much if I don't capture the rushing and scoring titles."  While that sounded like something Shaun might think, he wasn't likely to get caught saying it until after he signs a big long-term contract.

Lost in the turmoil was the alleged Matt Hasselbeck sound bite, "Right now our backs are six or seven feet from the wall."  The authenticity of Matt's words were immediately in question because the vernacular of a quarterback would contain references to "yards," not "feet."

Darrell Jackson returns to the starting lineup this week and if you believe our consistently unreliable informant, Darrell dismissed Seattle's success in his absence, "They been luckier than a turkey at a vegetarian Thanksgiving."  When challenged during his brief daily walk in the exercise yard, our source waffled on the accuracy of the quote.  Finally he admitted that Jackson actually said, "The Seahawks been luckier than a pig at a vegetarian luau."

Jackson's return demotes Joe Jurevicius to the bench where he allegedly said he planned to double his efforts (to 340%) in an effort to help his team any way he could.  In a show of team unity he supposedly offered Jackson the traditional theatrical best wishes for a broken leg.

Seahawk owner Paul Allen, who coincidentally has been luckier than a rat at a vegetarian ratfest, repotedly did not say that Coach Holmgren was being fined by the Commissioner for saying, "League officials called and told me they were planning to give the Hawks some breaks in the Tennessee game.  This is intended to make up for some bad calls earlier in the season."  No way would Holmgren confirm such a conversation publicly after his last fine.

So we can confidently report that all these rumors are a tempest in a coffee pot, nothing more than much ado about everything.  Ever since my announcement that I won't be going to jail to protect any sources, reliable ones have been hard to find.  Remember, you allegedly didn't hear it here first.

Let's start with steroids.  Use them in baseball and you are cheating and these days you get suspended.  Additionally, some people suggest erasing (or asterisking) tainted performance statistics in the record book.  Steroids are banned not because they are bad for you (otherwise baseball would ban smoking, drinking, and getting traded to Tampa Bay).  Steroids are banned because they give an athlete an unfair advantage.  They are cheating.

What about diving on the outfield turf, trapping the ball, and then holding it up as a catch?  Is that cheating?  Apparently not.  Lying to the umpire is not considered the same as lying to a Congressional Committee.  After all, you're not under oath on the field and treating umpires poorly is a sacred baseball tradition.  Lying in baseball is part of the fun.

What about stealing signs?  This is generally acceptable as long as you don't do it by using a hidden camera in the centerfield scoreboard or by sneaking a peek at the catcher while in the batter's box.  So how you steal is important.  And what you steal is even more critical.  Stealing a base is not cheating and is O.K. (except in limited circumstances discussed below).  Stealing from a teammate's wallet in the lockerroom is not cheating but is not O.K.

Throwing a scuffed or spit ball is officially cheating, at least if you're caught red-handed.  If you are clever enough to be su####ious but able to avoid detection, you could become a legend and get to the Hall of Fame with a wink and a grin.

Using a corked bat is officially cheating.  Maybe it gives you an unfair advantage and maybe not but is considered a shameful act.  Certainly it is nothing like pretending to be hit by a pitch, claiming a catch on a trap, or smearing pine tar too high on your bat.  Once caught corking, you have to reconsider the lying paragraph above.  Blaming Miguel Tejada for corking your bat with steroids could backfire.  He might demand to be traded.

On the other hand, we have some actions that are not officially cheating but are considered taboo.  You shouldn't be stealing a base if your team is way ahead in the late innings.  You shouldn't be bunting in the late in the game if the opposing pitcher is throwing a no hitter even if your team is only losing 2-0.  You shouldn't be swinging at a 3-0 pitch if your team is winning handily.  You don't want to embarrass other millionaires, even though they haven't conceded and presumably are still trying to beat you.  Some things are just more important than winning.  Like money, for instance.

Although confusing at first blush, clarity is possible if you remember these three simple baseball groundrules:

1.  Sometimes when you take an unfair advantage, lie, or steal, you are cheating.

2.  Sometimes when you don't take an unfair advantage, lie, or steal, you are still scum.

3.  You can take pills and supplements to enhance performance unless the word steroid is on the package.

What do Willie Stargell, Frank Howard, Harmon Killebrew, Frank Robinson, Willie Mays, Ted Kluszewski, Mickey Mantle, and Roger Maris have in common?  For one thing, they all hit more homers in a season than Hank Aaron ever did in any single year and they all did it while Aaron was playing.  So we're not talking about all the Brady Andersons from a different era.

Hank Aaron never hit more than 47 homers in a season.  He did that in 1971.  Willie Stargell hit 48 that same year.  Harmon Killebrew and Willie Mays hit more than 47 homers in three separate years, all while Aaron was in the league.  Hank deserves all the honors he has received for compiling such a long and consistent record of success, including his 755 career homeruns.  But his durability has exaggerated his prowess as the all time leading homerun hitter.

When Babe Ruth was the career leader with 714 homers, he also held the top two seasonal homerun totals (60 and 59).  When Barry Bonds breaks Aaron's record, he will hold both the seasonal mark (73) and the career title.  Barry isn't as likeable as Hank but neither was Ty Cobb.  So what?  Maybe Bonds used steroids and Babe Ruth was illegally fueled by beer during prohibition but they both dominated their eras in homeruns, both in season and career.  

So Barry Bonds is a fitting heir to the home run crown.  We could root for someone more humble and less arrogant for Home Run King but when we get them, we tear them down anyway.  Look how we humbled Roger Maris with an asterisk.  And by the time A-Rod dethrones Bonds, we will have escalated from mocking him to outright contempt.  So get on with it Barry and claim your destiny.  We wouldn't like you even if you were a nice guy!