Sport: Splendor Among the Potted Palms

At baseball's annual meetings, the elite meet to wheel and deal

It was a deal worth millions, the kind of high-finance finagling that usually takes place in the plush penthouse suites of office towers or aboard private Learjets. In such transactions, aides with bulging briefcases and thick black books usually dance attendance near by, ready to proffer, at a nod from the principals, relevant statistics and legal interpretations. But the deal under discussion did not involve a merger or a stock swap but a swap of a different kind:, a trade for a relief...