11.   Look at the way baseball has self-destructed.

12.   No sport has allowed itself to be strangled by its traditions the way baseball has.

13.   Not to mention the way minor-league baseball was when it first arrived in the Valley during World War I, before night lighting.

14.   That, too, was baseball the way it ought to be.

15.   The initial target of the campaign has been to remind people what they like about the game, to think about baseball the way they did as youths.

16.   The real issue involves the quality of the umpires hired by Major League Baseball, the role baseball takes in training umpires and the way baseball defends its umpires.

17.   The way baseball is supposed to be played.

18.   Yes, the winter meetings are back in earnest, just the way major league baseball wanted them to be.

19.   But one way baseball owners did get some of that wealth was by expanding when they saw fit, and now they want to contract to cut costs.

20.   They watch the American umpires on television back home, just the way Japanese baseball players watch the major league stars.