• by May 6, 2004

WHAT A TANGLED WEB MLB WEAVES: - Funny how times change. Thirty years ago, Earl Weaver and Carl Yastrzemski were thrown out of the ballgame if they kicked dirt onto a base. Yesterday, Major League Baseball got paid handsomely to let Columbia Pictures and Marvel Studios put Spiderman logos on three bases and the on-deck circles of 15 American League stadiums.

Baseball purists complained about the move faster than a pitch by the Phillies' closer Billy Wagner. As one told the MediaDailyNews, a sister publication of Real Media Riffs: "It's an ephemeral promotion that has no connection to baseball. They've basically made baseball a pawn in somebody else's one-weekend marketing game."

It's true that baseball has always meant something more than the duel between batter and pitcher. It's not hard to buy into the mythology given shape and form by dozens of writers and Ken Burns' massive documentary of the 1990s, knowing the power of Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Jackie Robinson and histories of the Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees and Chicago Cubs.

But let's be clear here. Baseball is a business, and has been one almost from the evenings the Knickerbockers crossed the Hudson River from Manhattan to play at the Elysian Fields in Hoboken, N.J., nearly 150 years ago. Out-of-home advertising has been a part of the baseball experience for more than 100 years. We talk about clutter now but look at pictures of old ballparks and see how many banners were splashed across the outfield walls.

Even today, there are ads everywhere: Behind home plate, beyond the centerfield wall, even virtually behind the batter's box where only the TV viewers can see. At Fenway Park, W.B. Mason's sign is even referenced by play-by-play announcers describing where a ball hit the fabled Green Monster. Radio and TV games have commercialized everything, including the lonely call to the bullpen.

It's a little disingenuous to think that baseball won't try to cash in as much as it can. The only question with the Spiderman promotion is whether it can go too far. And that answer is yes. That's not surprising, considering baseball's track record. It's had quite a couple of years, from the recent steroid controversy to the death of an Orioles player connected to an over-the-counter diet medication, to the labor disputes, a 1994 strike that canceled the World Series and spilled into 1995, and the 2002 All-Star Game that ended up in a tie.

And since there's a rule against messing with the bases - we won't bore you with baseball trivia, but the rules gotta mean something - it's typical that baseball would manage to product-place itself into foul territory. There's a question that some teams, which by the way own Major League Baseball, will adhere to the promotion.

We'll just have to see. That's why, as the manager says, they play the full nine innings.