Sidestepping a potentially nasty proxy fight, the New York Times Co. announced yesterday that it would give two seats on its board to a pair of hedge funds seeking to increase investor profits.

Connections can be good, but they can also become conflicts of interest.

Former U.S. Sen. George J. Mitchell released his report Thursday on the illegal use of steroids and other performances enhancing substances by Major League Baseball players.

Mitchell, 74, is widely respected, the sort of statesman who’s called in to fix problems others can’t solve. But he also has past and current links to baseball, including his role as director of the Boston Red Sox.

When it comes to Rudy Giuliani’s effort to win the Nascar vote, the national press corps just can’t resist stereotypes.

The latest sample comes from today’s Washington Post: “On Sunday, the Giuliani campaign came to the Homestead-Miami Speedway, past a handful of Confederate flags flying in the parking lot and beyond the Jack Daniel’s tent, to attend NASCAR’s Ford 400.”

There’s so much more to this picture than fast cars, bourbon and the Southern Cross.

Like any sport, baseball needs its villains.

And right now, there’s no better villain than Scott Boras, the California-based sports agent who has the audacity to seek and get really, really good contracts for his millionaire clients.

Boras, 55, is so hateful, it would seem, that he will even upstage the World Series.

When Curt Schilling takes to the mound in the American League
Championship series, he’ll be pitching for the Boston Red Sox against
the Cleveland Indians.

Off the field, Schilling is one of a relatively small group of baseball players who are willing to pitch for political candidates.

He campaigned for President Bush in 2004, and earlier this year, he
said he was backing Sen. John McCain of Arizona for the 2008
Republican presidential nomination. However, he added that if Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois were the Democratic candidate he would have a hard time choosing between the two men.

Two seasons have collided - the endless season of the presidential campaign and the shorter season of the baseball playoffs.

This means that presidential candidates have been showing up at the playoffs, most especially Republican presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani, who was there front and center to see his beloved New York Yankees exit the playoffs in the first round.

These sporting appearances make sense. The politicos get a little TV airtime away from the coffee shops of New Hampshire and Iowa. And they associate themselves with a game that’s American as apple pie and steroids. (OK. They don’t stress the steroids.)

But there can be risks to rooting for a team, as it inevitably means rooting against another team. Giuliani have picked up some votes in New York, but the inhabitants of Red Sox Nation might not be able to forgive his connection to, in their opinions, an evil empire.