Baseball season is officially under way and it's all a numbers game. Kiplinger has highlighted five stocks that may be in play --- Jarden, Under Armour, PepsiCo, Hibbett Sports and Siriius Radio-- so here is their pitch and my thoughts on taking a swing at any of them.

Oddly, the Kiplinger story makes note of the fact that baseball and investing are both driven by numbers, yet provides very few of them to support their thesis.

Back in August, former pitcher Todd Stottlemyre, a veteran of 14 Major League seasons who last pitched with the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2002, was looking to start his own hedge fund in the wake of fellow retired baseball player Lenny Dykstra's spectacular crash and burn.

These days, his financial aspirations seem to be a little less high finance. Actually, a lot less. The Globe and Mail reports that Stottlemyre "wants Canadians to join his network at ACN, a multi-level marketing company that promises an ongoing stream of commissions for members who manage to convince friends and associates to buy telecom services through them from companies such as Telus Corp. and Verizon Communications Inc."

The 2008 Major League Baseball World Series achieved the event's lowest television ratings in history, and the league is off to a similarly lousy start to the 2009 season.

Ratings for Fox Saturday Baseball have slipped 9% since last season and 23% since 2000. The Wall Street Journal reports (subscription required) that Fox executives will be meeting with MLB Commissioner Bud Selig next week to try to come up with ways to boost ratings.

Executives are not panicking yet -- the real test will be the All-Star Game and the Playoffs, which account for 90% of the revenue under licensing deals.

Tom Hicks, the owner of the Texas Rangers baseball team and the Dallas Stars NHL franchise, has defaulted on a $525 million loan related to the teams.

Hicks has downplayed the importance of the default, saying that it's just a bargaining tactic to bring the lenders back to the bargaining table to negotiate better terms. But industry experts tell The Associated Press that that's unlikely to be the full extent of it. A default on a loan is usually a sign of serious financial problems, but analysts think that Hicks has enough equity in his teams to maintain control -- even if he does end up selling minority stakes to outside investors.

New York Yankee executives apparently read BloggingStocks. A day or so after posting on the American League baseball franchise's truly-stratospheric plus-$2,000 ticket prices (and empty seats) at the new Yankee Stadium, the Yankees announced a ticket price cut.

The Yankees cut prices on most premium seats, including a 50% cut in the top Legend Suite seats, to $1,250 from $2,500. Season ticket and partial ticket plan holders who purchased tickets at the previous price will receive additional, complimentary tickets as compensation or a credit.

It's a sign of the times: the New York Yankees, who just opened a cathedral of baseball, the $1.5 billion new Yankee Stadium, have underestimated the impact of the U.S. recession on sports/entertainment/leisure spending.

About 1,800 high-priced seats -- with prices up to $2,625 for each game -- have not sold. Imagine that. The Yankees began the inaugural season at their new home in the Bronx, located across the street from The House That Ruth Built, by increasing ticket prices anywhere from 5 to 50% per seat.

It's a tough job market for everyone. In addition to all the investment bankers facing smaller bonuses, there's another group of people deserving of our sympathy: professional baseball players.

The sagging economy has Major League Baseball teams feeling a little bit cautious as far as free agent signings and on top of that, there is somewhat of a glut of players on the market. Experts are forecasting a drop in ticket sales, but baseball may prove to be somewhat recession proof because the deals with television networks that make up a large portion of revenue are long-term guaranteed contracts: Even if advertising revenue declines, that won't effect the league or its teams directly.

ESPN analyst Buster Olney tells BusinessWeek that the Boston Red Sox are "absolutely loaded" and well-poised to take advantage of the weak economy to score some good bargains on free agents.

The Red Sox are a great example of well-managed company. By not bowing to the pressure to overspend in good times (letting pricey free agents like Pedro Martinez and Johnny Damon walk), they have left themselves in a strong financial position that allows them to be take advantage of weakness and get more bang for their free agent buck when times are rough.

It's a shame more public companies aren't managed that way.

After the New York Yankees signed the three biggest free agents on the market, Milwaukee Brewers owner Mark Attanasio sent an email to Bloomberg calling for a salary cap: "At the rate the Yankees are going, I'm not sure anyone can compete with them. Frankly, the sport might need a salary cap." He added that "I paid $220 million for my team; now they get three players for $420 million."

Under a salary cap system, teams would be limited as far as how much they can spend on player salaries each year -- the idea is to allow smaller-market teams to be competitive.

But in an interview with CNBC, Scott Boras -- the controversial super-agent who represents Mark Teixeira, Manny Ramirez and many others -- explained why he doesn't think baseball should have a salary cap. Of course it's a pretty self-serving argument but here's what he said: "I'm not sure what a salary cap does other than it prevents choices."

Of course Scott Boras could sell a champion sailor to a guy in the desert, but he actually might be onto something with this one: The free agent frenzy of out of control spending adds a "Hot Stove" season to baseball that others sports lack. And for all the talk about big budget teams killing competitiveness, the two teams that made it to the World Series ranked 13th and 29th (second to last) on the list of teams with the biggest budgets.

With the signings of C.C. Sabathia, A.J. Burnett and Mark Teixeira, The New York Yankees have signed the three biggest contracts of the off-season.

That spending spree is raising concerns about competitive balance in baseball, and Milwaukee Brewers owner Mark Attanasio is none too pleased. In an email to Bloomberg, he wrote that "At the rate the Yankees are going, I'm not sure anyone can compete with them. Frankly, the sport might need a salary cap."

In a phone interview with Bloomberg, he added that "I paid $220 million for my team; now they get three players for $420 million." Brewers assistant general manager Gord Ash had some fighting words for the Yankees: "This is very reminiscent of what they have tried before. It didn't work then, and I'm not sure it's going to work now."

Whether baseball will ever end up with a salary cap is an open question. Under the current system, teams that spend huge sums of money on players are required to pay a "luxury tax" to the league, but that seems to do little to dissuade these signings.

For the sport as a business, a salary cap seems to be the way to go. This arms race hurts profitability for all teams, and it certainly seems to be having a negative impact on team values. According to Forbes, the average National Football League team, which operates under a salary cap with non-guaranteed contracts, is worth $1.04 billion. In baseball, only the Yankees are valued at more than $1 billion, and the league average is just $472 million.

Without a hint of irony, the Associated Press reported that "Trailing by seven runs with seven outs left in their season, the Red Sox pulled off the biggest postseason rally since 1929. Boston staved off elimination in the AL championship series with an 8-7 victory over the Tampa Bay Rays on Thursday night when J.D. Drew singled home the winning run with two outs in the ninth."

That's right: in the midst of a market meltdown, the Red Sox pulled off the greatest comeback in playoff history since 1929, and they did it on October 16th, just 13 days before the anniversary of Black Tuesday. Coincidence? Who knows?

But given that there are a lot of people making predictions about the future of the market -- and none of them really know what they're talking about -- I'm proposing a new method. If the Red Sox come back to win the next two games and shock the Tampa Bay Rays out of their first ALCS title, then the comeback is real -- and the markets have bottomed.

But if the Red Sox break their fans hearts by losing after such a glorious comeback, then we'll have to chalk the market's modest gains of the past week up to a bear rally -- sucking in optimists only to destroy still more wealth.

In light of current economic conditions, you might be worried about your situation: your job security, your home's value, your 401(k), and how you're going to pay for your kid's college.

But hey: quit being so selfish, and have a little sympathy for the real victims of this mess. That's right: professional athletes. MLB.com's Hal Bodley reports that "Economic uncertainties facing virtually every professional sports team, every player and, of course, each and every fan undoubtedly will have a trickle-down effect during baseball's offseason."

He goes on to say that teams are expected to be "more cautious, if not conservative, in locking up those not considered superstars," as they cut spending in anticipation of depressed attendance and advertising revenue.

But 2008 revenue hit a record high and some commentators, including agent Scott Boras, who is of course biased, say that baseball may well prove to be recession-proof. But I'm not so sure. It may be that attendance and consumer interest in the game will remain robust, but leading sponsors, especially in the financial industry, may be less aggressive with their marketing dollars. The PGA Tour is certainly seeing that effect already.

It looks like it could be a blue Christmas for Manny Ramirez.

There are many ironies in the fact that President George W. Bush will throw the first pitch at Major League Baseball's All-Star Game in New York. For one, President Bush is the first managing general partner of a Major League team (the Texas Rangers) to become President of the United States.

President Franklin Roosevelt was the first to attend an All-Star Game and throw out the first pitch, starting the tradition. He too had to deal with a poor economy and by the time he threw out that first ball the groundwork was being laid for World War II. President Bush has had to contend with his own war.

While there are differing views as to whether we should have gone into Iraq and whether we should stay or get out, this will always be viewed as George's war, fair or not. And the state of our economy in 2008 will also be viewed as George's economy, fair or not.

The ultimate irony for me is that Yankee Stadium is scheduled to be torn apart at the end of the season. This is YANKEE Stadium and the last president to set foot in it will be George W. Bush. The stadium with the greatest heritage in baseball, the 'House That Ruth Built', is going to be torn apart while our economy is also being torn apart. It is being torn out at its roots.

Back in June, Georges Yared blogged about one of the silliest lawsuits in sports history: Major League Baseball decided that it would take on fantasy baseball leagues, battling for a licensing fee for the use of statistics, such as batting averages, home runs and earned run averages. Major League Baseball sought to limit the number of companies that could use its data for operating fantasy baseball websites in exchange for a fee, and CDM Fantasy Sports Corp sued, essentially arguing that data about a factual event such as the outcome of a baseball game was not proprietary because it could be garnered from various sources other than the league itself.

CDM won in federal court and baseball appealed to the Supreme Court, which declined to hear the case. According to the Wall Street Journal, "In taking on the fantasy-baseball operators, and losing, MLB has likely cost every pro sports league millions of dollars. All the leagues had been getting fees from fantasy operators."

It's good to see Major League Baseball lose here: after failing miserably to protect the game's integrity from the threat of illegal drugs, gouging fantasy players for fees should have been the last thing on the league's mind. MLB doesn't need any more controversy right now, and should never have waded into this battle in the first place.

It was less than 3 weeks ago when Alex Rodriguez decided that the middle of World Series Game 4 was the opportune time to announce he was ditching the Yankees through a clause in his contract. At the time, Howard Stern sidekick (and lifelong Yankees fanatic) Artie Lange quipped: "Don't let the free-agency door hit you on the way out" (I'm paraphrasing to keep it clean, folks).

In the wake of this stunt, our own Georges Yared referred to A-Rod as a "crybaby extraordinaire" and a "selfish, self-centered you-know-what." Georges also noted that, "The attempt to upstage the Red Sox and Rockies should not be forgiven nor forgotten by the baseball brethren." Indeed, it was a classless move, one likely perpetrated by A-Rod's agent, but certainly given the green light by the third baseman himself.

And yet, here it is mid-November, and hijo pródigo A-Rod and the Yanks are back at the table. It's all sorts of amusing, really. This morning, it hit newswires that negotiations mediated by Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) officials have resulted in a new contract for the clutch player who isn't. Reportedly, A-Rod wanted to restart negotiations with the team, but chose to use a third party (Goldman representatives) instead of his agent, Scott Boras.

Shortly after the market closed today, I got one of my familiar MarketWatch.com bulletins in my in-box. But it wasn't concerning after-hours earnings or the Dow's (latest) triple-digit drop. Rather, it simply stated: "Home-run king Barry Bonds indicted on perjury, obstruction of justice charges."

Yowsa. While everyone always just assumed Bonds used the juice at some point in his career, I think this comes as a surprise to many sports fans. A federal grand jury has accused Bonds of lying under oath when he said he was unaware that substances handed out by personal trainer Greg Anderson were steroids. Bonds has also maintained that he did not use steroids in 2001, as he chased the single-season home-run record, then held by Mark McGwire.

According to MarketWatch, John Burris, "one of" Bonds' lawyers, told San Francisco radio station KCBS the Bonds would plead "not guilty." Burris also asserted that Bonds "will be found not guilty." Burris says the indictment was a shock, as the government doesn't have proper evidence to bring such a claim.