10 Reasons Why Baseball Is Back

8 Barry Bonds is making history.

There are grandchildren yet to be born who will look at you aglow with wonder and gasp, You saw Barry Bonds play? Only a few who saw Babe Ruth swing a bat still walk the earth, and the legions who caught the prime of Ted Williams dwindle with every sunset. To watch Bonds now is your privilege—nay, your duty—as a baseball fan and, in the grand tradition of the game, as an oral historian.

You will recount how Bonds made hitting a baseball—what Williams called the toughest feat in sports—look so easy that teams went to unprecedented lengths to keep him from swinging at all. You will say that back in 2004 (assuming his stats through Sunday hold up for the rest of the season), he was walked in almost 40% of his plate appearances and had a .612 on-base percentage—13% greater than any other player's in history. And you saw him interrupt the tedium of intentional walks just often enough to chase Ruth and Hank Aaron for the alltime home run record.

You must add that Bonds commanded your eyes but not your heart. You winced when he told The Boston Globe that Boston was a "racist" city, though he'd never played there, and that "they"—presumably the white establishment—do not build monuments to blacks, when a giant statue of his godfather, Willie Mays, stands outside his home ballpark at 24 Willie Mays Plaza.

You will note, too, that Bonds had never slugged better than .700 until he did so at ages 37, 38, 39 and, as of this month, 40—a freakish, actuarial-table-busting phenomenon that, along with the indictment of his personal trainer in a steroid distribution investigation, threw a shadow of suspicion over his greatness.

The sum of it all was impossible to ignore. Tyson grew tiresome, Michael retired and Tiger slumped, leaving baseball with the single most compelling person in sports. You watched. You had to.

9 The hardball World Cup debuts next spring.

In a best-case scenario for the international baseball tournament planned in March, righthander Mark Prior of Team USA will take on a Dominican Republic lineup that includes Sammy Sosa, Vladimir Guerrero and Miguel Tejada in the prime-time championship game at a sold-out, flag-festooned Dodger Stadium. Dominican Republic starter Pedro Martinez will challenge a U.S. lineup with Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter. Every four years the combination of star power and nationalism will give baseball the spotlight in an otherwise low-wattage time on the sports calendar (before the NCAA tournament heats up). Fox is interested in carrying at least the championship game of the tournament, a 16-team, four-pool event spread over 18 days, with early-round games likely headed to cable. Those early games will be held at spring training venues, with later games possibly played in major league stadiums in Anaheim, Los Angeles, Phoenix and San Diego.

"The Major League Baseball Players Association is optimistic that we will be able to put together an A-list of players," MLB chief operating officer Bob DuPuy says. A successful international tournament, baseball officials believe, can promote growth of the game internationally. Some stars, such as the Cardinals' Albert Pujols, a Dominican, and the Tigers' Ivan Rodriguez, from Puerto Rico, have expressed great enthusiasm for the tournament and have promised to play. Most are at least willing to keep an open mind. "I'm definitely interested in it at this point," the Yankees' Rodriguez says. "We'll see."

10 Eric Gagne can't be beat.