This past weekend, I was poking around in a Portland bookstore when I came across some old magazines, and one of them -- a 1958 issue of Look -- featured a cover with the question,

IS GREED KILLING BASEBALL?

DeOrsey's basic argument was that Major League Baseball, by broadcasting its games all across the country, was killing the minor leagues. And if the minor leagues died, then of course baseball itself would die, because the minor-league towns were essentially training grounds for baseball fans.

"So the greedy ways of big-league baseball persist," wrote DeOrsey. "If they persist, the day will come when baseball won't need large stadiums, because nobody will be at the game except the players."

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What's really misleading is the suggestion that "turmoil" is anything recent. You give me an hour at the National Baseball Library in Cooperstown, and I'll find you a story detailing baseball's "problems" from any year you care to choose. Baseball certainly does have its problems. Always has, always will. But what doesn't? It's baseball's particular burden is that its problems are written about in loving and sometimes hateful detail.

Well, the greedy ways of big-league baseball certainly persisted, and do to this day. And yes, the minor leagues suffered for quite a while. But today, minor-league baseball is absolutely booming; if there's not a professional baseball team playing within 30 miles of your house, just wait a year or two. As for baseball needing large stadiums ... gosh, they seem to open up a new one every year or two.

Same day, different establishment, I found an issue of Sports Illustrated, dated March 23, 1970. The cover is wonderful -- for those of you too young to remember, SI's covers were about 200 percent more beautiful in those days than they are now -- featuring Dick Allen, resplendent in his smile and his Cardinals home jersey. And just above Allen's right shoulder, in big yellow letters ...

BASEBALL IN TURMOIL

You gotta hand it to old Gussie ... he sure could sell beer. And all things considered, he wasn't anything like the worst owner in the game, either. But enlightened, he was not. A couple of years later, he traded Steve Carlton for Rick Wise because he didn't want to pay Carlton the going rate for great pitchers. That one didn't work out so well. But you know, Busch probably figured he was just doing what he had to do. As he'd said in 1970, "I'm not mad, I'm disappointed. Instead of being a sport it has become a headache. ... Some of us have to take a stand for the good of baseball one way or the other. I hate to be the sucker who does it, but I am perfectly willing to do it. I think we can still work this thing out, but we are going through a hell of a turmoil right now."

And finally, one last old magazine ... Sports Illustrated again, this time the August 21, 1972 issue. The cover shot depicts a non-mustachioed Sparky Lyle holding his Dalmation puppy, Little Spark. I bought the magazine for the article about Lyle, but when I got home it was a Scorecard item that caught my eye. The baseball owners had just conducted their summer meetings, and the big item on the agenda was realignment.

Some owners favored realigning the four existing six-team divisions, or even shifting to three six-team leagues (I'm not sure how that was supposed to work). There was also some sentiment for scheduling 10 teams to play three "home" games apiece in New Orleans. But that plan, like the others, was scotched.

In the meantime, Royals owner Ewing Kauffman suggested that ailing franchise "be encouraged to try for 'better merchandising' of games." Astros general manager Spec Richardson "urged everyone to 'roll up their sleeves and go to work' to promote baseball."

And now, more than 30 years later, they're saying the same things.

As Peter Gammons wrote in his latest column, Bud Selig recently said, "The most important thing now is to somehow find a way to build a partnership with the players so we can market the game the way it should be marketed."

"Talking to former players, I realized that this friction has been going on all the way back to the sixties," Selig continued. "It's time we all accepted that we have a stake in the game's future, and if we do it right, I believe that it can come back in a hurry. We have to brainstorm and explore every idea. I am encouraged by what some of the players have said in this area."

Most people think history goes back only as far as they can remember, and Selig is no different. It's typical of an owner to assume that baseball's "friction" only goes back to Marvin Miller and the beginning of the Players Association as a powerful force. However, the truth is that there's been "friction" for as long as baseball's been a business, because the players and the owners have never been able agree exactly on what constitutes fair compensation.

What's really misleading is the suggestion that "turmoil" is anything recent. You give me an hour at the National Baseball Library in Cooperstown, and I'll find you a story detailing baseball's "problems" from any year you care to choose. Baseball certainly does have its problems. Always has, always will. But what doesn't? It's baseball's particular burden is that its problems are written about in loving and sometimes hateful detail, in the most-read section of every important and not-so-important newspaper and magazine in the country.

All of this angst doesn't tell us that baseball is ailing, though; it tells us that baseball is still in our hearts and minds. If it weren't, would so many people bother writing about it?

As for "marketing" baseball ... Holy moly, I'm so sick of hearing that baseball needs to market itself better. No, it doesn't. Marketing baseball, at least in the major leagues, is easy. You build a winning team and the fans will show up. You build a winning team and a new ballpark, and they'll really show up. And yes, you're always going to have some teams that struggle both on the field and at the gate. Always have, always will.

For the most part, "baseball" just needs to get out of the way, and let baseball do what it does. If people like Bud Selig and his cronies can just learn not to un-market the game with all their doom and gloom, the sport will be just fine. Greed may or may not be good, but it hasn't yet come close to killing baseball. And there's no reason it ever should.