Watch your heads, baseball fans, because the sky is falling.

Or at least that is what some mistaken observers of the game would have you believe.

Last month, all-world shortstop Alex Rodriguez scored himself a hefty 10-year, $252 million contract from the Texas Rangers, and now--as is always the case whenever a big-time free agent cashes in--everyone and his uncle is running around proclaiming that the Apocalypse is upon us.

Here we go again.

We have come to expect this "Chicken Little" behavior from typical doomsday prophets like the self-important Bob Costas, but lately even more rational commentators--including writers for this very sports page--have been sucked in by the mania.

Just before winter break, two of my esteemed Crimson colleagues--Messrs. Michael R. Volonnino '01 and Alex M. Sherman '04--wrote separate columns bemoaning the current state of the game. Sherman went so far as to advocate a salary cap resembling the one in place in other professional sports leagues. Volonnino, though not advocating an outright salary cap, proposed a luxury tax. This, however, is just as troubling seeing as it still imposes a limit, albeit permeable, on spending.

While each raises his fair share of solid points, they both overstate the condition of the game of baseball. And the remedy they prescribe is even more alarming than the disease they hope to cure.

A salary cap? Ugh, guys, no thanks. And no to anything remotely like it.But in light of all the criticism that they and others have leveled at the current system, let's see if we can't get beyond the hysteria and examine baseball's situation rationally.

For starters, here's a pop quiz for those of you who decry Major League Baseball as an institution of clear-cut haves and have-nots:

Before this offseason, who was the highest paid player in baseball?

Feel free to take a moment and scratch your head about this one.

The answer: Carlos Delgado, first baseman for the Toronto Blue Jays. Delgado signed an extension with the Jays at the end of the 2000 season that will pay him an average annual salary of $17 million. At the time, it was the largest yearly salary ever for a professional baseball player--that is, of course, until A-Rod went on the market.

Now how many of you would consider Toronto one of the fat-cat organizations in baseball? Volonnino and Sherman probably wouldn't, based on the fact that they choose not to rank the Jays among the group of what Volonnino deems "the five-to-eight teams that can realistically compete." And yet, despite this dubious omission, Toronto boasted the highest paid player ever, albeit for a short amount of time. Delgado's signing was, moreover, just three years after the Blue Jays went out and bagged Roger Clemens off the free agent market and away from the Boston Red Sox--a club which, incidentally, Volonnino did include as one of baseball's five-to-eight "have" teams.

So who says the rest of the league can't compete? Even the Colorado Rockies, who finished second-to-last in the NL West last season, were able to go out this winter and make Mike Hampton the richest pitcher in the game. And, for that matter, before the results of the A-Rod sweepstakes were announced, who would have seriously considered Texas--which plays not in Dallas, but in Arlington--a big market?

Can it really be true that only eight or so teams are capable of signing the big-money players when we have just identified three others (the Rangers, Jays, and Rockies) who are more than holding their own when it comes to the highly sought-after free agents? I don't think so. Especially when you consider that three of the teams identified by Volonnino as among the five-or-so contenders have not been to a World Series in the last decade, and one--my beloved Sox--haven't won squat in you-know-how-long.