Doom looms in Budville.(baseball commissioner Bud Selig)(Brief Article)

My advice is to give baseball a big hug. Squeeze hard, don't let go.

Lose yourself in the showdowns, savor the dueling bombs of Bonds and Sosa, adjust appropriate tear ducts for the gooey goodbyes of two icons. Appreciate your Mariners and Cubs, your Ichiro and Gonzo, your peanuts and Cracker Jack.

The memories may have to last awhile.

What should be an autumn of paradise is only a mask, hiding the looming threat of yet another labor war. Bud Selig's negotiate-in-privacy plan has been nothing but a transparent, season-long taffy pull, no longer able to hold back familiar dark clouds. During the seven-year itch since the World Series was nuked, you would like to think the owners learned from their errors of ego and the players from their mistakes of greed. But here we are again, up against another deadline this Halloween, with two perpetually polarized parties offering no assuring reasons why they won't dust off their tanks and missiles again.

Only a Pollyanna would say baseball isn't lurching toward another impasse. These foolish, stubborn men are more interested in battling each other than preserving the grand old game, which explains why it's now the national past-its-time. "I can't say that I'm optimistic." says Fay Vincent, the last independent commissioner, ousted back when the sport was much better. And if a tense off-season follows previous form--a lockout that leads to a work stoppage next season, the ninth in three decades--you know what that spells.

Doom.

Simply, baseball's role in America would slow to a crawl. Any remaining smidgen of consumer trust would vanish. There's an adage that the game's recovery powers are almighty, that the scab always heals no matter the wound.