Baseball is the American pastime, though these days, it seems more people would rather watch “rednecks” (more on that word later) drive in a circle or tri-oval for 4 hours then watch the All-Star Game.

Our second pastime, invading Iraq, seems a bizarre rival. But, in fact, it should teach baseball a lesson or two that could be used to help solve its long-term problems.

Take the example of U.N. weapons inspectors. They’re about as welcome to inspect weapons in Iraq as I would be to wander around in our missile silos. Or they are about as welcome as American baseball players in Japan.

You see, the Japanese professional baseball league has limits on the number of foreigners that can be on any team’s roster. A maximum of three foreigners can be on a roster of 28 active players.

If Iraq was doing something like this, we’d demand that we go to war. But since this is our ally who is abusing the good name of free trade with us, we’re all happy and content to know that at least we can stick three players on their rosters, who will then absolutely rock their world. After all, when we send them a third-rate AAA veteran like Karl “Tuffy” Rhodes, it doesn’t take long before he’s leading the league in home runs.

That is, until he stops getting pitches. Which happens pretty quickly. The stories of Americans being called out on strikes well out of the strike zone whenever they approach a record held by a Japanese player — usually Sadaharu Oh — are well-documented, even by Japanese writers who seem to take pride in this.

But why do we settle for this? For one, this is the Japanese league stopping just short of socialism, something we try to fight on a relatively frequent basis. Secondly, more of their players keep showing up on Major League rosters, only adding to the gross disparity between the poor and rich teams. Not to mention bringing in the Japanese John Rocker, Ichiro Suzuki.

The two aren’t exactly buddies, but they aren’t as far off as the Ichiro-friendly media has pretended. When Norm Charlton gave Ichiro a pair of knee-high cowboy boots, he was asked if he would wear them. Ichiro replied “No. I’m no redneck.”

Is this something we really need to let into the major leagues? At least players like Alex Rodriguez are simply happy to be filthy rich. Dominican players come in, do their job, and keep their mouths shut. Ichiro just slanders a group that slandering won’t get you in Sports Illustrated.

If nothing else, you’d think the WTO would do something about this gross discrimination and protective economic behavior that serve as a barrier to free trade. There are other policies sharing vague similarities, like in NFL Europe, where each team is required to have a few players from the country that they play in. But that policy is at least pro-Europe, not anti-someone else. Plus, there are still some 50 spots available.

Even worse, if you wanted to help solve this treatment by buying your own Japanese team, you can’t, at least not unless you happen to be from Japan. Foreigners are prohibited from owning teams.

Just imagine if Iraq had a league like this. We’d probably have already resorted to nuclear weapons after our attempts to negotiate with ourselves broke down.

So why doesn’t the Major League put some pressure on the Japanese League? It wouldn’t be difficult. We could easily construct a “no more than three Japanese players on any team” rule. It would totally ruin the Mariners’ hope of winning the World Series, since they have nearly exclusive rights with most Japanese players — mostly because the team is owned by Japanese investors.

Americans don’t face a terrible amount of discrimination in the world when compared to everyone else, but this is quite possibly the least justified business practice towards American workers abroad.

Perhaps addressing this situation in the United States would be the first step towards a long-term solution. If a universal draft was instituted where Japanese players couldn’t simply bemoan their case until they force the team with their rights to trade them to the Yankees or simply refuse to negotiate with teams outside of New York or Seattle, the first step would be a huge one.

Players from Japan wouldn’t have a chance to say “No thanks, Pittsburgh Pirates, I’d rather stay on at the canning factory,” or at least no more of a chance than anyone else does.

It’s needed. It’s needed now, before we see the horrific decline of the Minnesota Twins and Oakland Athletics and any small-market, small-budget teams that will simply be unable to compete after their players become free agents in two years.

Baseball’s problems are far from over. But rectifying the situation with Japan would be a first step to reducing the league hegemony that can come with players named Suzuki and Kazasaki.

After all, the situation might be dire for American athletes abroad, but is Tuffy Rhodes glad to be a star anywhere?

Tim Kearns

is a senior in political science from Bellevue, Neb.