ABSTRACT
In an era of million dollar salaries, transnational corporate ownership, and celebrity worship, sports can appear as a metaphor for all that is good and bad in our culture. Nowhere was this more evident than during the 1998 baseball season, forever marked by the dramatic battle between St. Louis slugger Mark McGwire and Chicago Cubs favorite Sammy Sosa as they closed in on Roger Maris's revered single-season home-run record. Sports historians and economists have told us that during baseballs period of early commercialism and professionalism, the game grew at an extraordinary rate. The 1876 meeting would put into place the two key structures that have since come to define the economic structure of Major League Baseball (MLB). In an era of free agency, where top-quality baseball demands top-quality salaries, market territory can have an important impact on the dollars teams devote to athletic salaries.
