Baseball's Major League Debts

Updated from Aug. 19

The players may call strike three on the baseball season later this month, but when it comes to paying for all those bats, balls and chartered jets, it's a few big banks holding the bag.

Over the past three years, three commercial banks -- Bank of America(BAC Quote), FleetBoston Financial(FBF Quote) and J.P. Morgan Chase(JPM Quote) -- have arranged at least $2 billion in loans and lines of credit for Major League Baseball and for a handful of professional teams, including the Cleveland Indians, Milwaukee Brewers and Philadelphia Phillies, according to Loan Pricing Corp., a division of Reuters.

And Japan's Sumitomo Bank arranged a $145 million loan for the Detroit Tigers' new stadium, Comerica Park. Comerica (CMA Quote), was involved in initial discussions about providing the loan, but ulitmately had no part in the deal.

Lou Merloni, .260

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