July 11 | 1:35 a.m. ET

The standings at the break show 18 of baseball’s 30 teams at .500 or better, and four more within four games of .500. This is a remarkable level of parity that speaks for a healthy sport.

While this promises to make for an exciting second half, it also presents problems for those teams that want to improve themselves for the pennant race before the July 31 trade deadline. Unless some teams utterly collapse in the next couple of weeks, there are going to be many more buyers than sellers.

Everybody figures — rightly — that the Yankees will be buying and trading. That’s understandable given the team’s rocky first half, but it’s absurd given what the Yankees are paying for what they have.

We regularly mention New York’s $208-million payroll, but we rarely put it in perspective. To appreciate how badly the Yankees are at judging talent, look at what other teams are paying. The Red Sox are second, and they’re $85 million behind. Then come the Mets at $101 million, which isn’t even half of what George Steinbrenner spends.

So, of the 30 major league teams, only one spends at least half of New York’s investment, and 16 spend less than a third of the Yanks’ tab. And, while it helps to be able to spend money for top players, it’s hardly necessary.

Of those top three teams on the spending list, only the Red Sox are in first place in their division; the Mets are in last place in theirs. The Angels, fourth on the spending list, are also in first place, as are the Cardinals, at sixth in spending.

But the fifth team, the Phillies, and teams 7-9, the Giants, Mariners and Cubs, are all struggling. The Giants have an excuse — no Barry Bonds. The Mariners just haven’t gotten what they thought they’d paid for. The Cubs have also suffered from injuries, but they haven’t played all that well, either.

In 10th place are the Braves, who just keep on winning. But the NL East leaders, the Nationals, are 23rd in spending at $48.6 million. The AL Central leaders, the White Sox, are 13th at $71.2 million. The NL West leaders, the Padres, are 16th at $63.3 million.

The good news in all of this is that you don’t have to spend wildly to win. The bad news is that among the eight teams that are pretty much done already, three aren’t even trying — Tampa Bay, Colorado and Kansas City.

According to Hal Bodley writing in USAToday, the Rockies and Royals both reduced their already bargain-basement payrolls this year. Both teams are getting subsidy payments from the other teams under revenue sharing. It’s an embarrassment to the game and an insult to the concept of competition.

And it points out that the one thing baseball needs more than a payroll ceiling is a minimum payroll.

Just for fun, check last year’s NBA payrolls. The highest, the Knicks, is less than half that of the Yankees. The lowest, the Bobcats, is just $25.2 million, which is a little less than $5 million below that of Tampa Bay — and that’s for 12 players as opposed to 25 and 41 home games as opposed to 81.

I’m behind on the mail, but here are some recent E-mails.

Eddie from Columbus, Ga., had this comment on my post on Jason Giambi:

I totally agree with you on your comments about Jason Giambi. You have to respect the way he has handled adversity and just gotten back to being a baseball player. Like I have contended all along, steroids cannot help you hit. Playing in a market like New York is tough enough, without the added pressure he put on himself. Now that he has gotten his confidence back, with the opportunity to swing the bat, he will be just fine. I predict his batting average will be at or around .300 by the end of the season and he will be a major factor in the Yankees' race for the pennant.

A while back, I commented on Shaq’s Internet MBA. Some readers questioned the value of the degree from The University of Phoenix. Others have since responded.

Dan from Honolulu:

Let's stop doggin Mr O'Neal (MBA). As a member of the U.S. military, we have service men and women that take up to 20 years to complete an undergraduate program because of military commitments and raising a family. Okay, The University of Phoenix isn't the Wharton School of Business. . . (but) LBJ graduated from Texas State(a teachers school, back in the day).  Shaq should get a pat on the back.

Added Walt from Warwick, N.Y.:

The fact that the school is not accredited does not detract from Mr. O'Neal's accomplishment. It’s not the Close Cover Before Striking School of Business. Also, while it might have taken him a few years to finish his BA, he finished it! I believe that the purpose of your blog was to compliment an athlete who goes beyond athletics. Mr. O'Neal proves that there are positive role models in professional sports. They deserve a mention, and you did. Thanks.

July 7 | 10:46 p.m. ET

A quick check of the box score from Thursday night’s Yankees-Indians game shows that Jason Giambi was two-for-three with a home run — his ninth of the season and fourth in the past three games. His batting average was up to .274 and his on-base percentage a robust .423.

Look at his chart on the season: Midway through May, Giambi, who had bottomed out early in the season at .150, was still struggling to break .200 and had just six RBI. By the beginning of June, he still had just 12 RBI, and everyone was writing him off.

But he’s more than doubled his RBIs since then and jacked his average to a respectable range. He’s won games with his bat, played decently in the field and has become a vital part of the Yankees recent surge.

This is a guy who was miserable last year, then was reviled when his grand jury testimony in the BALCO case was leaked in the San Francisco Chronicle. He came into the season under a cloud, being hounded by questions he kept saying he couldn’t answer.

When he started so badly, it looked as if a once-proud career was over. I don’t know how many people would have crumbled under the pressure of what he was going through, but it’s more than would have overcome it. And Giambi overcame it.

Through it all, he’s never whined, he’s never complained, he’s never gone after a cameraman or reporter, he’s never even kicked a water cooler in disgust. He’s just worked his butt off, tried to be decent to everyone and otherwise kept his mouth shut.

I had never been much of a Giambi fan, but I’m becoming one. It’s not, after all, how a person reacts when life is good that defines him, but how he carries himself when nothing is going the way it should. You learn more about a person when he’s facing adversity than when he’s basking in success.

And Giambi has proved to be tough, resilient, determined and decent. No matter what he did before to make himself a giant, he’s not taking it now. You don’t have to like him, but based on how he’s handled this season and responded to it, you’ve got to respect him.

NHL will bounce back
The warring sides in the NHL lockout are saying there still is no collective bargaining agreement. But it appears inevitable that there will soon be one.

What’s impressive is how quietly both sides are conducting this round of negotiations. There are few press conferences, little fanfare, virtually no national publicity. There are also no accusations flying back and forth; whatever their remaining differences, it’s clear that both players and management are determined to get this done sooner rather than later.

The players lost a lot. So did the league. But out of the wreckage both sides created should come an NHL that is financially viable, more competitive than ever, and, with rules changes to increase scoring certain to be adopted, more exciting, too.

It will take a long time to draw fans back, but it may turn out to have been worth it. Here’s hoping the signs aren’t illusory and that a deal is coming, not within weeks or months, but within days. Hockey is one of the greatest sports you can ever see live. It occupies just a niche market, but it’s an important niche.

July 6 | 2 p.m. ET

Some people eat to live, others live to eat. And then there are the folks who eat for a living.

We hear about them every year on the Fourth of July when Nathan’s holds its annual hot-dog eating contest at Coney Island. After five years of cramming more tube steaks into his elastic craw than anyone else, Takeru Kobayashi has become a household name.

Watching these guys eat is like watching a 20-car pile-up coming out of the fourth turn at Daytona. It’s sickening to watch, but thrilling, too. And when Kobayashi, who weighs 145 pounds, wins, it’s almost possible to think of him as an actual athlete.

Eating isn’t an Olympic sport, but it does have a governing body, the International Federation of Competitive Eating, or INFOCE, as they like to call themselves because it’s too hard to get out the entire name when you’re chewing on three points of scungilli.

You’ll find all the records there, from David Lerman’s seven sticks of butter in five minutes to Sonya Thomas’ 11 pounds of Downtown Atlantic Cheesecake in nine minutes, to Kobayashi’s hot dog record. He’s made his name on dogs, but I’m more impressed that in 15 minutes, he once ate 17.7 pounds of cow brains.

You’ll also find a sternly worded don’t-try-this-at-home disclaimer, added, no doubt, at the behest of the lawyers whose job it is to take the fun out of everything. Not that the warning is needed. Everybody knows you don’t stuff cubic yards of food down your gullet at home. You do it at fraternity parties. (Confession: After many pitchers of beer one night, I engaged in my first and only eating competition, and I set my school’s unofficial record for eating garlic bread. My roommate had to leave the room and sleep in the hall that night. He said something about noxious vapors, if you can imagine that. That could be why you’re not supposed to try it at home.)

Lest you think eating isn’t a sport – “Bring me another three bags of barbecue chips, honey! I’m training for a match” – the top “athletes” have groupies who keep web pages devoted to their heroes, like this one dedicated to Thomas, nicknamed “The Black Widow” and the second-ranked gorgaholic in the world.

A site dedicated to Kobayashi calls him – no kidding – “the greatest athlete in the world.” Apparently, the webmaster never heard of Lance Armstrong.

N.Y. state of mind?
One last word on the Olympics. Okay, maybe two.

First, congratulations to London, a great city that truly cares about the competition and sport, which is why it upset Paris for the 2012 Games. It’s also why New York never really had a chance.

The problem with the U.S. bid was that it was all about putting on a show, the way Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland were always doing when movies – and life – were simpler. It was never about the competition, but rather about the thrill of throwing billions of dollars around to build swell stadiums and have the world ooh and aah at what the organizers had wrought.

That’s how Atlanta was sold. And look what a mess that turned out to be. It was never truly about the thrill of competition; it was about the thrill of chasing the almighty dollar.

London wanted the games because it wanted to revive athletics in Great Britain, which, if you haven’t been paying attention, lags behind even France in competitive competence. It’s bid was led by Lord Sebastian Coe, the great middle-distance runner, and he didn’t sell stadiums and infrastructure and sponsorship opportunities as much as he sold his love of sport, of the Olympic Games. Reports say it was what swung the vote.

Good point to remember for any city that wants to bid in the future: Sell your passion for sport, not your desire to be thought important for putting on a show.

July 4 | 1:30 a.m. ET

July 4 is our nation’s birthday. It’s also George Steinbrenner’s.

The most celebrated — and execrated — owner in sports is 75, and he’s not the ogre he used to be. At least not in public.

He’s not even the ogre in private he’s been presumed to be, at least not according to The Boston Globe, whose Gordon Edes writes about how John Henry might not own the Red Sox today if it weren’t for Steinbrenner.

Joe Posnanski of the K.C. Star delves into Steinbrenner’s relationship with his demanding father — among many other things.

Bob Klapisch of The Record of Hackensack, N.J. looks at what the Boss has done with an initial investment of $10 million.

All I’ll add is that I have never admired his methods or his personality. Many times I’ve told him to quit meddling with his team. He’s been unspeakably cruel to too many people for me to work up any affection for him.

That said, I can’t imagine baseball or the Yankees without George M. Steinbrenner III at the helm. He’s presided over the longest streak without a championship the Yankees have gone since Babe Ruth arrived. He’s also been around for one of the team’s great championships runs — the four in five years collected from 1996-2000, the six World Series appearances from 1996-2003, and the 10 consecutive playoff appearances that faces perhaps its biggest challenge this year.

Few people have ever left as big a footprint on their chosen professions as has Steinbrenner. He is one of a kind.

IOC process is offensive
I can’t be the only one that finds the Olympic bid process offensive. With the IOC set to pick a host city for the 2012 Summer games on Wednesday, actual world leaders, who, one would suppose, would have more important things to do, were infesting Singapore, groveling before the IOC on behalf of their cities.

Tony Blair was there along with the Queen Sofia of Spain and Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York City. And all of them were begging to be allowed to spend billions of dollars on somebody else’s sporting event.

American sports leagues for years have shown no shame in demanding that cities pay for their obscenely expensive stadiums. But the International Olympic Committee makes them look like homeless guys begging quarters in front of the Port Authority Bus Terminal.

Lately, baseball teams have been building their own stadiums; both the Mets and the Yankees are financing their new buildings, so it is economically feasible. Isn’t it time when the IOC should start doing the same?

The front runners for the Olympics are supposedly London and Paris, two cities that need no introduction to the world stage, cities that will remain important and desirable to visit regardless of whether they ever host another Olympics. Why New York needs the games is also a mystery — it’s not as if it needs to introduce itself to the world or prove its usefulness.

Moscow may have something to prove and Madrid, a magnificent city, may want to expand its profile, but the fact is nobody truly “needs” the expense of the Olympics.

In ancient days, the Olympics were held in Olympia in Greece every four years. It was a permanent site. Some day, the Olympics should return to that idea. Pick a city, preferably in a neutral country with a nice climate, excellent wines, distinctive local cuisine and colorful customs, and stay there.

And never offend us with the spectacle of international leaders groveling in hopes of being awarded the opportunity to bankrupt their taxpayers just so that Coca-Cola and McDonalds and Nike can have an advertising venue of which they can be proud.

June 30 | 8:48 p.m. ET
Thomas Hearns wants to fight again. This is pure foolishness, and shame on whomever it is in Michigan who will give a 46-year-old man who, when he retired in 2000, was already slurring his words after 23 years in the ring.

No word on the opponent for the July 30 fight, but also fighting on the card is Hearns’ son, Ronald, who’s 6-0 as a middleweight.

Hearns had a great career and was involved in three of the most memorable fights of the past 25 years, two against Sugar Ray Leonard and the 1985 fight against Marvin Hagler that was the most furious and the best three rounds I’ve ever seen. He retired five years ago with a record of 59-5-1. There’s no reason to add another fight to that total. He’s got nothing to gain and only his brain to lose.

Gift gaffes
You’ve probably seen the story by now about Patriots’ owner Robert Kraft giving his Super Bowl ring to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Initially, some writers in Boston wondered whether Kraft gave Putin the ring or the Russian pocketed it. Kraft says he gave it away when Putin seemed so enthralled by it. It’s a little gaudy for my taste, but I suppose if I had won the Super Bowl, I’d like it just fine. And it’s got enough diamonds on it to finance just about anyone’s retirement.

I realize that Kraft can get another one just like it, so it’s not as if he gave away something that can’t be duplicated. Still, the spur-of-the-moment gift brings to mind a similar unplanned gift of a sports artifact that could be called priceless.

The item was George Gipp’s letter sweater, which once belonged to the sports collection in the University of Notre Dame library. Just before Ronald Reagan left office in 1989, Notre Dame’s last championship team visited the White House. Somebody thought it would be a great photo op to take the Gipper’s letter sweater along and photograph Reagan, who had played the Gipper in the movie “Knute Rockne, All American” with it.

An employee of the Notre Dame library was dispatched with the sweater. But when Reagan put it on, the employee, for reasons even he could never explain, was struck with a terminal case of blind charity and blurted out that Reagan should keep the sweater.

As the story was told to me by a Notre Dame official, the gift wasn’t authorized. Reagan said he was thrilled and would treasure the artifact forever, then sent it into storage, eventually to go into his presidential library, where it is today. When the sheepish employee came back to South Bend, he explained his monumental blunder to his superiors, who called the White House and tried to explain that it was not their intention to give the sweater to Reagan, that their man made a mistake in the excitement of the moment, and could they please have the sweater back?

The White House said no way. The President had it and he was keeping it. And that’s how the Reagan Library came into possession of an icon of American sports.

There’s a different version of the story, along with a small picture of the sweater, at the government archives Web site. Scroll down to the bottom of this page to see it.

Time for an E-mail
I’m informed by a reader that I gave The University of Phoenix more props than it deserves.

Writes Tim from Kenmore, Wash.:
MBA from UofPhoenix for Mr. O'Neal? I'd hesitate to call it a "legitimate degree from an online accredited school". UofPhoenix isn't accredited by AASCB, the business school accreditation organization. And it doesn't require its applicants to take the GMAT, the standard entry test for B-schools nationwide. Its faculty are advertised as "real world professionals", which means they don't have doctorates, nor do they have publications to their credit. And most importantly, credits from UofPhoenix are not accepted for transfer from most fully-accredited universities. It's great if Mr. O'Neal wants to further his education, but knowing it took him ~10 years to finish his undergrad degree at LSU, color me skeptical that he finished a full MBA in just a couple of years, while traveling the NBA schedule.

June 29 | 7 a.m. ET
That sure wasn’t much of an eruption from Mount St. Steinbrenner this week. The Boss called all his crack baseball people – also the ones who aren’t so crack – down to his Tampa bunker to try to figure out who to blame for a $200 million team that’s playing .500 baseball.

And he didn’t fire anyone. I’m telling you, this is not the George M. Steinbrenner III any of us once knew.

When you look back at the past decade, you realize it has been a long time since George Steinbrenner has been George Steinbrenner. In the old days, he would have been on his third manager in this screwy season his collection of baseball museum pieces has been bumbling through.

The old Boss used to wander out to the back of the press box in Yankee Stadium when he was unhappy and wait for the writers to gather ’round. Then he’d deliver a speech that would take the paint off a battleship.

The old Boss took phone calls from the beat guys and fed them rumors and facts as the spirit moved him. If a player, coach, manager or clubhouse boy was in trouble, Steinbrenner would make sure the world knew about his displeasure.

It’s a kinder and gentler Boss who on July 4 will celebrate three quarters of a century on this earth. It’s a Boss who no longer takes phone calls and no longer calls impromptu press conferences. Today, when Steinbrenner is unhappy, he doesn’t even speak for himself; he has his spokesman send around a fax or e-mail.

And when his team falls short, he can’t even get up the bile to fire a clubhouse boy. He’s a nicer guy, but he sure isn’t as much fun.

To remind yourself of the way things used to be, check out his bio at baseballlibrary.com. Wikipedia.com also has an interesting piece, although don’t believe the claim he was named for George Herman Ruth – the George M. moniker was in the Steinbrenner family long before the Babe showed up.

Big graduate?
I’m not sure we realize what a treasure we have in Shaquille O’Neal, who did one of those things we’re always saying we would like athletes to do: For no reason other than he thought it would make him a better and more capable human being, O’Neal collected an MBA degree.

He got it from the University of Phoenix, the online accredited school that you probably know from annoying pop-up ads. It’s a legitimate degree, and Shaq deserves credit for being a role model. Now, if a kid really wants to be like Shaq, it’s not enough to just wear the same shoes, get some tats and buy some bling. The kid also has to get a master’s degree.

The more we get to know him, the more amazing – and better – he becomes.

And now the mail:

I was amazed to hear from someone who actually prefers not to have prediction columns.

This from Tom of Northville, Mich.

I guess it's your job to make predictions. Is it really necessary though in order to report a story? Who won, who lost, why -- seems pretty simple. Pregame it would be who is in the best shape, who has home-field advantage, who has momentum. All can be very interesting without having to make a prediction.