Only 162 games will settle this score.

In his dual role as baseball commissioner and playground monitor, Bud Selig has ordered timeouts for John and George. The boys became unruly when arguing about a new A-Rod baseball card. John had it once, but then decided he didn't want it--until George snatched it up off the ground and said, "Mine, all mine, forever mine, ha-ha on you, Johnnycakes." Then John stomped his little feet, balled up his little fists and said, "Georgie Porgie is the insane dictator of The Evil Empire."

Well, maybe it didn't happen exactly that way. But close enough. For when John Henry, the Red Sox owner, wouldn't raise his offer by an increment of 10 percent, he failed to acquire shortstop Alex Rodriguez from the Rangers. An increment of 10 percent has been, is and likely forever will be, small potatoes to George Steinbrenner, the Yankees owner whose new third baseman is Alex Rodriguez.

On seeing A-Rod in pinstripes, John Henry bawled and bellowed and demanded a salary cap be slapped on the damned Yankees because they have "gone so insanely far beyond the resources of all the other teams."

Rather than ignore the disingenuous bleatings of a man with the second-highest payroll in baseball, George Steinbrenner accused the "embarrassed, frustrated and disappointed" Henry of choosing "not to go the extra distance for his fans in Boston." Ever the Boss philosopher, he also advised Henry, "It is time to get on with life and forget the sour grapes."

It was about here that Mr. Selig ordered the boys off the playground and back to their desks, heads down.

So let's take up the argument. When the team with the most money gets most of the players it wants, is that good for baseball?

Off the island of Manhattan, water-cooler sentiment no doubt holds that it's bad, very bad, maybe even very, very bad. The Yankees crook a finger. They reach an inch deeper in Steinbrenner's bottomless pocket. And out comes the best player in baseball, Alex Rodriguez. Voila, yet another World Series ring!