Baseball: The Expansion Draft Begins

Baseball's expansion teams appear to have already learned one of the fundamental lessons of the game: Anybody with a left arm that can sometimes find home plate is worth his weight in television contracts. When those noveau riche Sun Belt teams in Arizona and Tampa conducted their raid on the talent of their older cousins Tuesday afternoon, both immediately went for left-handed pitching. Tampa selected Florida left-hander Tony Saunders with its first pick, while Arizona picked Cleveland lefty Brian Anderson. The draft was further indication of the triumph of America's changing demographics over baseball tradition, as baseball created two new haves in the Sun Belt at the expense of have-nots such as Pittsburgh and Kansas City, old baseball teams in declining cities that can ill-afford to replace the talent on which they've spent so much development money.