Baseball and Billions: A Probing Look Inside the Big Business of Our National Pastime

A professor of economics at Smith College, Zimbalist ( Comparing Economic Systems ) here presents the best recent work about baseball's economic aspects. He analyzes profits, franchise values, attendance and ticket pricing, the relations between teams and their host cities, minor-league ball and player salaries. Admirably objective, he is skeptical about the owners, whose creative bookkeeping practices make their cries of poverty almost credible; he is skeptical about the players, who generally play poorly after they sign multi-year contracts; he is skeptical about the media, whom he finds massively ignorant of sports economics and presumably content to be so. Finally, he demonstrates that those who predict the demise of the national pastime need not be right. Scholarly and impressive. (Sept.)