We’ve been told forever that it’s big-market dominance that accounts for baseball’s trouble. But we just had a little-market World Series and the ratings were terrible. To me it proves that the Yankees were not, in fact, “ruining baseball.” The fact is baseball is in long-term decline. One other straw in the wind: USA Today’s Baseball Weekly just became Sports Weekly (or something like that) so it can be devoted largely to football coverage. A friend tells me that sales now are 3 times higher than last year. And this week the World Series isn’t even on the cover.