SportsLine wire reports

NEW YORK -- Imagine this: Mark McGwire walking to the plate with a patch on his bulging biceps advertising a burger joint.

Or those famed New York Yankees pinstripes -- the ones worn with pride by Ruth and Gehrig, DiMaggio and Mantle -- pitching an ad for bagels.

It could be coming to a ballpark near you.

Baseball is considering allowing teams to sell advertising on the sleeves of their uniforms. It's not unprecedented: Soccer teams around the world have ads on their shirts, selling everything from breweries to banks, often emblazoned in letters larger than those of the team name.

"THE FIRST THING I THINK OF IS somebody's bail bonds on the back of the Bad News Bears' uniforms," Baltimore pitcher Mike Mussina said Wednesday. "So it's going to be my name, my number and Joe's Bail Bonds? That's the first thing I think of."

The ads, first reported this week by the Sports Business Journal, could be on 1- to 1½-inch square patches -- perhaps too small to be easily seen from the upper deck, but certainly big enough to be picked up in TV closeups and photographs.

NASCAR drivers are walking, talking billboards when they wear their track outfits. And tennis players and golfers frequently appear on the court and the course wearing caps with corporate logos.

"It's one of those things where baseball is looking to further market itself and maybe that's a possibility we need to look at," Seattle catcher Dan Wilson said. "If that's one way to do it, that's one way to do it."

Although shoes and equipment such as bats and gloves carry brand names and logos, ads on uniforms apparently would be a first for the four major U.S. team sports. Currently, the only corporate marking on baseball uniforms is an "R" for Russell Athletic, the manufacturer of the jerseys.

"THIS IS ABOUT TRYING TO FIND creative ways to bring valuable partners into baseball," said Tim Brosnan, baseball's senior vice president of domestic and international properties.

Brosnan wouldn't put a timetable on the discussions or when a final decision will be made, saying it depends "on when things gel."

"I'm a traditionalist, but I know all these things we're doing generate more revenue, and that's what we have to do," Florida Marlins manager John Boles said. If Mr. Henry (Florida owner John Henry) says, `This is what we're doing on the uniforms,' I'd say, `Looks great to me.' "

Several officials speaking on the condition they not be identified said owners would have to give the final go-ahead and pointed out commissioner Bud Selig moves slowly and carefully toward decisions.

"There are active discussions about the issues that bring additional partners and additional sponsors into baseball," Brosnan said. "We're kicking around a lot of things."

Selig and chief operating officer Paul Beeston did not respond to telephone calls seeking comment on the plan. Gene Orza, the union's No. 2 official, said a national sponsor might buy the rights to all uniforms.

"The talks are still very preliminary. To even discuss them is to give them a substance they don't deserve," Orza said. "But be assured that whatever we do, it will be tasteful, a small logo on the uniform."

BASEBALL WOULD PROHIBIT UNIFORM ADS only from tobacco, alcohol and media companies. Broadcasters of games are unlikely to want to show closeups of players wearing ads for their competitors.

Consumer advocate Ralph Nader dislikes the idea, and sent a letter to Selig telling him so.

"It is bad enough already when outfielders are going back for a long drive, that fans have to see advertisements for Coca-Cola and other products," Nader wrote.

"You are trying the patience of loyal fans across the country. Fans yearn for baseball that is free from blatant huckstering and crass commercialism," he said. "Enough is enough."

In the scramble to find new revenue in the 1990s, often to cover players' escalating salaries, teams have dramatically increased ballpark advertising, plastering ads on fences and -- for the first time -- behind home plate, where they are visible behind the batter from the center field television camera.

Teams have even sold the naming rights to stadiums -- Banc One Corp. will spend $66 million on the naming rights to the Arizona Diamondbacks' ballpark in the next 30 years.