I'm impressed with Major League Baseball's ability to keep the game in front of the public all year long. The NFL pioneered that bit of marketing genius with stuff such as the NFL draft in April and then started filling in with the scouting combine in February and minicamps during the spring; all things that serve as teasers for the next season.

Of course, baseball's primary way of accomplishing the same thing used to be the "hot stove league," offseason trade rumors and the like. But I think the new plan, the All-Star Congressional Steroid Hearings, is much more effective, much more dramatic. I suppose that the Nielsens on the Palmeiro-McGwire-Sosa hearings were so good that a second run was just too tempting to pass up.

The new season begins in a week - the Clemens-Pettitte-Knoblauch episode next Wednesday. And the beauty is that it's on the taxpayers' dime.