This is n. p. r.'s all things considered i'm noah adams and i'm robert siegel the major league baseball season heads toward an exciting climax in the next few weeks and unlike last year that the rules come from dramatic races for the playoffs and not just the home run a relative mark mcguire and sammy sosa sports writer stephen taxes to envisage a busy tracking and seven in several cities around the country that still leaves a lot to wrote about and so concerned about the outcome of this baseball season just a couple weeks that

There is indeed only the cleveland indians right now are definitely going to be in the playoffs even though the powerful new york yankees in the american league and the atlanta braves in the national league don't have anything locked up yet they'll

And you look at the schedule for the last couple of weeks which teams have the inside track to win either to divisional titles are wild card spot

I think the national league of the cincinnati reds are very young hungry and and low paid team have the weakest schedule going forward only have to play division leading houston twice the rest of the way and all their other games are against some five hundred teens and that celebrated meanwhile have to play tether six times and last season and that has yet to take another close friend of tanking last weekend to the braves

Um and didn't make it and so far this year the verge of want to get to math and greg maddux and shot them out twice and you can be sure their interface and one more time in the american league

The yanks look like they overcome some reason being that um with some late home run a rally this week boston attention hang on to the wild card and only one of their opponents arrest the way has a a winning record and surprising open to everyone thought was finished last in the american league west the government of three games on boston they play division leading texas three times to be a tough road that they had a great season

The mention of the oakland a.'s and before that the cincinnati reds internationally that brings us back to where you started with us from the baseball season began which was looking at payroll and as some of these teams new york cleveland spent a fortune on players us of course to the los angeles dodgers and the baltimore orioles that the reds and uh the oakland team been through a payroll tax from their best shot

And we'll of pages of the thirteen major league baseball teams the red when twenty second in cairo and a half later twenty six in payroll at least at the beginning of the year the rest of the bargain clubs watching and nature have been there that care about thirty three million of the athletics uh on the payroll of twenty three million about a quarter of what the yankees are paying their game i think the point is that you can succeed in the low revenue market but don't try and uh if the season morning and today the revenues would make the playoffs any

Eight cloves of that would make the playoffs by contrast will be among the twelve biggest spenders in the game so that's not not a big surprise now well sissy

You know the uh baseball business idea of the major league owners decided on some changes and and understand that there are not going to be league presidents anymore and baseball

That's right there was a meeting of club owners up in cooperstown near the hall of fame

This weekend they decided to limit the positions of national league president and american league president which have been around since the formation of these leagues in nearly a hundred years ago the case to the american league and back in in the late eighteen hundreds in the national league the point is that baseball is moving toward a very centralized approach toward managing the business of this game

As well as some of the on field operations as part of a consolidation we're gonna see one group of umpires not separate american league versus nationally got something that they've wanted to do for a long time

Inter league play where american league and national league teams played each other during the season has become a reality in a fixture in the game now so what we're seeing is a reduction in the meeting

Fullness of the american league internationally as business entities but as far as records go and of course playing each other during the season and leading up to the world series that doesn't seem like they're going to change let's hope not

Stephen thank you very much for talking with us once again thanks rubber stamp in fact it's been talks with the siege friday about sports and the business of sports