Fantasy basketball, baseball, and football leagues are thriving on SportsLine, SportsZone, and the Sporting News .

But baseball, as we all should know by now, thrives on daily surprises and progressions, revenges and redemptions.

People may loathe George Steinbrenner and his Yankees, but baseball thrives when the Yankees are ascendant.

But baseball thrives on history, on great events of the past.

It will begin in states such as Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan and Indiana, the same Midwest region where professional women's baseball thrived half a century ago.

Here, baseball thrives on the men-at-work ethos that soccer has all over the world.

Since baseball thrives on history, as well as contemporary sound and fury, it is intriguing to learn how Popeye saw himself saving that long-ago day in '55.

Amateur baseball in Cuba was thriving in the 1940s and deepened the organization and maturity of the league.

It deserves to live, so that baseball can thrive, and remain the chosen sport of the American people.

Yet without balance, baseball cannot thrive.