Columnist Ron Kantowski: Baseball should be more worldly

Friday, July 6, 2001 | 10:28 a.m.

Ron Kantowski's column usually appears Thursday. Reach him at ron@lasvegassun.com or 259-4088. Regular sports columnist Dean Juipe in on vacation.

Manchester United must have been idle.

Last Sunday, I received an e-mail from a British bloke named Terry White, hoping that somebody from the Sun could explain to somebody from the UK why baseball is so unpopular on an international level.

I've got news for you, Terry. It's not that popular here.

Well, it's still kinda popular, at least on the nights they detonate fireworks or give away Bobblehead dolls. But, as you say:

The rest of the world eats McDonalds, drinks Coke and does whatever the verb is with Microsoft. The only reason for not marketing baseball in a similar fashion must be that Americans would rather be the only fish in a small pool than risk being No. 17 in a bigger pool.

Terry, if you're talking about soccer -- or as you or anybody that quaffs Guinness over at the Crown & Anchor on East Tropicana calls it, real football -- we're not even No. 17 in a bigger pool. We were No. 32 (dead last) in the last World Cup and fell into a big pile of camel dung in France when Iran beat us.

As for the Microsoft verb, the ones that immediately come to mind are "complain" or "call tech support." But that's another story.

The big fish in the small pond theory may be part of the reason baseball has fallen behind in the import-export business. Maybe that's why we American-ized football, because we stink at the traditional kind. Maybe that's also why we invented NASCAR, because a Winston Cup Ford is more American than a Formula One Ferrari, and we don't have anybody behind the wheel who could hold a candle to Michael Schumacher.

But the xenophobic argument only goes so far when you consider the National Basketball Association has opened offices in 10 international cities, we've force fed you the likes of the Barcelona Dragons and Scottish Claymores of NFL Europe, and our National Hockey League rosters look like the Mayflower manifest.

The reason baseball has been slower to go global is that the men who run it are so shortsighted they can't see beyond the short right-field porch at Yankee Stadium. But their vision for the future is improving.

Have you noticed that one of the best players in the game this season is a little Japanese guy named Suzuki? Or that we have sold the hallowed tradition of Opening Day to foreign countries the past couple of seasons?

The irony of baseball being the last of our "Big 4" sports to export itself is that it is the one best suited to widespread participation. You don't have to be built like Big Ben to be good at baseball. Little guys such as Suzuki are every bit as valuable as behemoths such as Mark McGwire. Nolan Ryan, who could throw a baseball through a brick wall, was great. So was Tommy John, who couldn't break a window with his best fastball.

So to answer your question, Terry, it shouldn't be long before you see a lot of guys named Nigel sporting a big wad of chewing tobacco, scratching themselves in the on-deck circle and holding out for the big bucks -- er, pounds.

Just do us a favor. Don't let that funny-looking guy with the big ears that used to be married to the Princess of Wales throw out the first pitch during the literal World Series of 2010.