Since 1995, only baseball teams that are among the top seven in revenues have won any World Series games.

        U.S. Sen. Mike DeWine of Ohio doesn't like that and wants to know whether baseball plans to do anything about it.

        On Tuesday, baseball commissioner Bud Selig will be among those testifying before DeWine, chairman of the Senate's antitrust and competition subcommittee.

        “I want to use the subcommittee really as a public forum to examine the whole issue of competition in baseball,” DeWine said. “I believe that unless baseball addresses the disparity in income issue, that baseball will no longer exist as we know it, and teams like the Cincinnati Reds will not be competitive and never be competitive.”

        Reds general partner Carl Lindner plans to attend the hearings but won't testify. Selig will be the first to answer questions, followed by others who've studied the baseball business. They include:

        • Former Sen. George Mitchell and columnist George Will, two members of the Commissioner's Blue Ribbon Panel on Baseball Economics. The panel's report, released in July, damned the current revenue imbalance in baseball and recommended some drastic measures to correct it.

        • Broadcaster Bob Costas, whose book Fair Ball also condemned Major League Baseball's apparent revenue and competitive disparities.

        • Sports economist Rodney Fort, who isn't convinced the situation in baseball is deteriorating.

        “What we hope to do is put a spotlight on the problem and tell baseball: "Look, fans expect more. The status quo is simply not acceptable,'” DeWine said.

        Selig formed the Blue Ribbon panel to examine the financial state of the game. The panel this summer found “large and growing revenue disparities exist” among baseball's 30 teams, causing “a chronic competitive imbalance:” Teams that can afford big payrolls win, and those that can't don't.

        That imbalance has grown worse since a 1994 players strike, the panel said, and the limited measures taken to spread some revenue around baseball haven't corrected the problem.

        The proposed solutions include greater revenue sharing among teams, a “competitive balance draft” to allow losing teams to draw players from winning teams, and franchise relocations.

        “I can't disagree with what the Blue Ribbon panel was saying,” Reds chief operating officer John Allen said. It's not impossible for teams like the Reds to win a World Series, he said, “but certainly with the Yankees winning three of the last four with large payrolls, that certainly seems that's the trend.

        “What they're able to do is to go out and, with those large dollars, get those players they need to help them to reach their goals. That's something we weren't able to do this year.”

        The numbers may look that way now, “but from a historical perspective, it's a tough call whether it's any worse than it's ever been,” said Fort, an economist at Washington State University.

        True, the Yankees have won three of the last four World Series, joining the multiple series-winning Yankees teams of the 1970s, 1960s, 1950s, 1940s, 1930s and 1920s. Baseball has always had “mini-dynasties” and success by big-market teams, Fort said, and their existence in the last 10 years doesn't mean the state of competition isn't any different than in the past.

        “The real question is, is that good or bad, and I have no opinion,” he said.

        In addition, proposed remedies such as revenue sharing and salary caps aren't perfect solutions, said Allen Sanderson, an economist at the University of Chicago.

        Revenue sharing is “subsidizing people to be bad,” he said, because owners don't have a strong incentive to field winning teams if most of their revenues are guaranteed. And even with salary caps, the best players may be drawn to bigger markets such as New York or Los Angeles, where they have more opportunities to earn money outside of their sports.

        “You can't automatically assume once we flatten salaries or payrolls, you're going to have a more equal distribution of things,” he said.

        DeWine said there's a legitimate taxpayer interest: Taxes help build ballparks and subsidize the sport, because businesses can deduct some of the cost of tickets and luxury boxes from their income taxes. And baseball has a limited antitrust exemption that has been restricted once by Congress and could be restricted again.

        “This really is important to Cincinnati. If you look at the numbers, there is a limit to how much revenue we get,” said the senator, a Reds season-ticket holder. (The senator's son is Cincinnati city councilman Pat DeWine.)

        “And it's not a problem that's going to be solved with the new stadium. ... Any Cincinnati fan has to be concerned about this. This has to change.”

Baseball debate goes to Senate

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