OK, Oprah, are you listening?  I'd like to interest you in buying the Chicago Cubs, who will be sold later this year. That, at least, is what recent news accounts indicate. For reasons I can't quite comprehend, Sam Zell, the Chicago billionaire who bought the Tribune Company media empire and its holdings, which include the Cubs, has said he will put the team up for sale. 

A couple of deep-pocketed NBA tycoons, Mark Cuban, who owns the Dallas Mavericks, and Jerry Colangelo, the chairman of the Phoenix Suns, are rumored to be among the possible bidders, along with several local businessmen. But they're not the well-known representatives of the city that you are, Oprah, plus isn't it time a woman took the reins of a major-league baseball team to see what she can do as the principal owner?

Let's face it, the Cubs' on-field fortunes surely wouldn't suffer, not when you consider how frustrated the team has been, lo, these many decades. Last season the Cubs were the worst team in the National League, and even this season a liberal investment in free agents is no guarantee of improvement.

Sure, the price of the team could be more than you'd want to pay. After all, even as the richest female entertainer and the world's only black billionaire, with personal wealth of $1.5 billion, you might not want to fork over $600 million, the franchise's estimated value.

But maybe you could lure other celebrities into an ownership group consisting mostly, if not entirely, of African-Americans. Michael Jordan's name leaps to mind, because of his years with the Chicago Bulls, and also because he once tried his hand at professional baseball, playing with a White Sox farm team briefly. And any number of other black athletes (past and present) might jump at the opportunity to be part of something that you'd put your name to. The list of candidates could include Venus and Serena Williams, Magic Johnson, and LeBron James, who recently bought a stake in the bicycle maker Cannondale Corp and has tapped multibillionaire Warren Buffett for investment advice. And let's not forget Ernie Banks, Mr. Cub himself, the Hall of Fame shortstop who said last year he wanted to buy the team.

Why put together a black ownership group?  Because it represents one of the last frontiers in American sport, one that Jackie Robinson himself saw as important in achieving the full integration of baseball.

Last month, Major League Baseball celebrated the 60th anniversary of Robinson's historic entry into the majors. In doing so, it was able to point to progress in some areas. For example, black and minority managers are no longer rare, (there are nine presently). Teams are required to  consider a diverse talent pool in filling executive positions, minority- and women-owned businesses increasingly are awarded "supplier" contracts, and in February the Major League Baseball Urban Youth Academy was opened in Compton, Calif. Located in an area that is 55 percent Hispanic and 40 percent African-American, it is viewed as a template for other academies like it that presumably would attract more minority youngsters (especially blacks) to play the game. (The percentage of black Americans in the majors has fallen from 20 percent in 1972, when Robinson died, to about 8 percent today.)

Despite Robinson's landmark status in the civil rights movement, the game has lost its allure for many black athletes. There are even reports that some historically black colleges like Florida A&M and Miles College are looking to white players to fill their rosters, the black talent pool is so limited. 

Be that as it may, Oprah, there is still something more troubling in my mind, namely the paucity of black fans at many major league games. It probably is better in Chicago, but when I attended a Red Sox game recently in Boston, I'd guess that African-Americans made up only 2 or 3 percent of the crowd. And the really sad part was I don't remember seeing any black youngsters.

It needn't be this way. After all, baseball used to have a grip on the black community, with pre-integration Negro League games often serving as major attractions. And even after Robinson broke the color line, many black fans kept up their interest by attending major-league games. Over time, however, black fans dropped away. I don't have the statistics to back this up, but I trust that my eyes aren't deceiving me, at least not in the majority of major-league markets.

Some people might argue that the White Sox, who have a black general manager and are more associated with the inner city than the Cubs, would be a more logical team to have black ownership. That may be, but I'd argue that the Cubs, in storied Wrigley Field, are more of a national institution. So, Oprah, it requires someone of your stature to assume control of such an American icon and give it fresh life, socially as well as athletically.

Having a woman in charge would be exciting, especially one as visibly successful as you, and with obvious cross-racial appeal.  You wouldn't be the only black female to be a sports team owner. Sheila Johnson, who co-foundeded the Black Entertainment Television with her ex-husband, is a co-owner of three Washington teams - the NBA's Wizards, the NHL's Capitals, and the WNBA's Washington Mystics. But to find a black woman owner in baseball you probably have to go back to Effa Manley, co-owner and business manager of the Newark Eagles from 1936 to 1948. Manley was a real mover and shaker in the Negro Leagues, so much so that she was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., last year.

According to the hall's website, Manley made the Eagles "a social force off the field and a baseball force on it."  That's just what your presence could provide baseball today, Oprah. And, here, let me say that baseball has already shown some signs of opening its doors to women. Jane Forbes Clark is the Baseball Hall of Fame's chairman of the board, and Phyllis Merhige and Katy Feeney, are vice-presidents in Major League Baseball's executive offices.

But Oprah, you could take things to a new level, bring more women and blacks into the daily operation of the Cubs, and by extension into baseball generally. And something tells me that if you put your mind to it, you'd find ways to bring far greater numbers of black fans to the games, and especially minority youngsters, even if it meant distributing 10 percent of all tickets to Boys and Girls Clubs and other youth organizations that well serve city kids.

Of course, you also could be cutting edge in other ways, too. One, I'd suggest, is to ban Cubs players from spitting on the field or in the dugout, both home or away, and eliminating spitting by visiting players as well at Wrigley Field.

Depending on how things break in the 2008 presidential election, you might even line up Hillary Rodham Clinton, a Cubs fan, to be the first woman president to throw out the a ceremonial Opening Day pitch.

But you better hurry. Martha Stewart, a Yankees fan, might be talked into buying the pinstripers first and leaving her stamp on the national pastime. And who knows what that might lead to?