Exam period has arrived, and once again, a monumental American sports tradition has risen to the occasion, providing a worthy escape from the bleak monotony of a Harvard January.

The NFL playoffs? Hardly. I’m talking about Major League Baseball’s off-season.

Don’t tell me that the NFL has usurped baseball as the National Pastime. Nothing could be further from the truth. Baseball is as healthy as ever. Coming off one of the most exciting seasons in sports history, it is poised to build upon its dominance of the American sporting scene. Now, that dominance is even extending to the drab, dreary months of winter.

When asked about how he passed his winters, Rogers Hornsby, the famously ornery Hall-of-Fame second basemen, replied, “People ask me what I do in winter when there’s no baseball. I’ll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring.”

I applaud Rogers’ spirit, but if Hornsby were alive today, I’m sure we’d find him not looking out his window, but feverishly checking ESPN.com to determine what prospects his Cardinals had given up in exchange for ace lefty Mark Mulder.

Major League Baseball’s off-season has evolved into the fifth major American sport. (Sorry, check that, the fourth—I nearly forgot that the NHL has ceased to exist.) For baseball fans, it’s also the second best. And this year’s off-season hasn’t disappointed—it’s been the wildest and most exciting shopping period since the advent of free agency in the 1970s.

Baseball captivated every fan possessed with a heartbeat this October when the Yankees and Red Sox hooked up in one of the best battles in postseason history, and it has maintained a virtual lock on the back pages of papers across the country ever since. From the continuing drama of The People vs. Barry Bonds in the BALCO steroid scandal, to Pedro Martinez’s ugly departure from the Red Sox to New York, to the Randy Johnson blockbuster, baseball has provided enough controversial, argument-inducing material to make the NFL playoffs seem as compelling as a bocce tournament.

For the first time, baseball is stealing headlines from football and basketball well into January. This past weekend, the biggest story wasn’t who would advance past the wild-card round of the NFL playoffs, but where Carlos Beltran, the prize of this year’s class of free agents, would finally land. This week the entire city of New York, the largest and arguably the most sports-crazed metropolis in the world, was abuzz not because the Jets had knocked off the San Diego Chargers in a wild overtime thriller to advance to the NFL’s divisional playoff round, but because both Randy Johnson and Carlos Beltran were set to be introduced at separate press conferences as new members of the Yankees and Mets, respectively.

Both New York baseball franchises realize the growing influence baseball off-season has on sports fans and the media alike. The Mets scheduled their official introduction of Beltran for the same day, last Tuesday, that the Yankees unveiled the pinstriped, 6’10 Johnson, in a successful attempt to steal the back pages away from the Yanks and increase their public exposure. Such media coups are growing more and more commonplace as every off-season becomes an extension of on-field rivalries and teams compete for the attention and money of fans by throwing enormous chunks of cash at premier free agents.

As tempting as it is to bemoan exactly the type of huge contracts that were handed out in the Bronx and Queens last weekend, baseball’s current economic situation is the reason the game generates so much energy in the off-season. Free agency and the absence of a salary cap create as close to a free market for players as exists in professional sports, leaving teams open to sign and trade players as they see fit—an exercise that is extremely curtailed in the NBA and NFL due to the presence of restrictive salary caps.

Sure, I’ve heard the arguments about competitive imbalance in baseball, how a salary cap is needed to curtail spending, and how most teams are effectively eliminated from competition before the season even begins. But did the 2003 Marlins, who had a payroll of just $51MM, 21st in the big leagues, or the 2002 Anaheim Angels, whose $62MM payroll was 16th, hear those arguments? Neither team was given a chance before the start of the season, but both went on to capture the wild card berth and then win the World Series. Baseball is more competitive now than at any point in its history, and it has been—gasp—free agency that has contributed to that parity, along with the 1965 introduction of the amateur draft and the divisional expansion of 1995. Since free agency was first granted to players in 1976, 18 different teams have won the World Series, whereas only 11 different teams won titles between 1950-1975.

Besides, too much parity can be a bad thing. Dynasties are the life-blood of American sports, especially baseball. A common hatred of the Yankees brings fans across the nation together every fall. Without New York’s 26 championships, their annual showdown with the Red Sox wouldn’t be such an electric, riveting affair. Would you rather see the confusing parity that now exists in the NFL, where every year is a crapshoot, and teams come out of nowhere one year (hello Carolina) before quickly fading the next (goodbye Tampa Bay)?

Thanks, but I’ll take the “competitive imbalance” of baseball over football’s salary cap-driven parity. Baseball’s off-season is too much fun. You can watch the 8-8 Vikings and the 8-8 Rams battle it out this weekend in a showcase of football’s finest—I’ve got some Sammy Sosa trade rumors to read about.

So as you put off studying for finals by calculating how many points of ERA Shea Stadium will save Pedro Martinez or how many days Randy Johnson will spend on the DL in ‘05, crack open a beer for Curt Flood, the patron saint of free agents. If he hadn’t courageously challenged the reserve clause in his contract in 1970, players might still be restricted to spending their entire career with one team.

And I’d still be stuck staring out the window.

-Staff writer Caleb W. Peiffer can be reached at cpeiffer@fas.harvard.edu.