North America has whipped itself into a frenzy over the exploits of baseball superstar Mark McGwire.

The St Louis Cardinals' ace has beaten the major league record of 61 "homers" in a season, and now has a string of games to stamp his place in history.

Television stations, newspapers and online sites are wall-to-wall McGwire, and the country grinds to a halt when he serves up his latest hard-hitting heroics.

Meanwhile, the rest of the world wonders - what on earth is going on?

Can baseball consider itself a major sport, when so many parts of the globe are bewildered by the mixture of pitchers, homers, plates, at-bats and sluggers in what looks like an exotic form of rounders?

Surely it is the poor relation to genuinely worldwide sports like cricket, football and rugby?

And do the tactical nuances of cricket put it on a different plane to the hit and run approach of its North American cousin?

Or are there just billions of people across the world who are slow on the uptake and ignorant of the skills, strength and excitement of the sport.

If so, are McGwire's exploits worthy of world acclaim? Or just a paragraph at the bottom of the world's back page?

What do you think?

Baseball: Is it worth all the fuss?

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