So who was the winner of this year's World Series? No question - it was the Japanese. Okay, so maybe the Red Sox won too. But, let's be honest - how many Red Sox fans are there in the world? 20, 30 million tops? Still can't hold a candle to 127 million Japanese, the vast majority of whom tuned in to every minute of this year's Series between the Sox and the Colorado Rockies. They were rooting not only for Boston pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka, who made headlines earlier this year when he signed a $52-million contract with the club and became the first Japanese to start a World Series; they were also pulling for Rockies star Kazuo Matsui, formerly of the New York Mets. As pretty much every Japanese fan knows, Dice-K and Matsui used to be teammates on the Seibu Lions pro team back in their home country. So Japanese fans had plenty of potential drama to savor. Could Matsuzaka redeem himself by staging a comeback from his weak performance in the playoffs? Would Matsui manage to put his more famous ex-teammate in the shade - and take revenge on the hated Mets who so clearly failed to appreciate his gifts? Thanks to the Sox' victory, of course, Matsuzaka is now being hailed as a hero back at home.

Japanese baseball fans have the best of both worlds. They have one of the globe's best professional baseball leagues at home, and they can also consume their fill of U.S. baseball games shown on local TV. MLB is not unaware of the fact that the growing number of top-ranking Japanese players in the U.S. has dramatically increased Japanese interest in the sport, with Japanese TV networks playing huge sums for the right to rebroadcast games. I'm told that MLB has even been known to schedule games between teams that pit the Japanese stars against each other at times that are more convenient for a Japanese viewing audience.

We talk about globalization in often apocalyptic terms, but there couldn't be a better example of the process than professional sports. It's not only Japanese players who have migrated to the U.S.; American managers as well as players have become popular fixtures in Japanese pro baseball. Trey Hillman, the manager of the wonderfully named Nippon Ham Fighters, will be leaving hordes of worshipful fans behind as he heads on to his next job at the Kansas City Royals. (Hillman has just led the Ham Fighters into the Japan Series - and suddenly lots of folks in Kansas are paying attention to baseball in Sapporo. Who would have thought?) Matsuzaka's astronomical salary, it should be noted, is a good example of the same forces that are driving sky-high compensation for corporate CEOs. As certain global industries become, well, level playing fields, the competition to hire star performers becomes more ferocious than ever. Surely it was no coincidence that the Japanese-American baseball lovefest was happening about the same time that the National Football League held its first regular season game in London. Look for more of the same in the years to come - only more so. As for me, my money's on the Ham Fighters.