Chicago ? Twenty years ago, when I went to San Francisco for the Democratic National Convention and to Dallas to cover the Republicans, our world wasn’t so very different from now.

There were global tensions galore, enough so that Eastern bloc nations such as the Soviet Union sent no athletes to Los Angeles for the 1984 Summer Olympics.

The big news for Democrats was not the presidential nomination of Walter Mondale on June 6, but the choice of Geraldine Ferraro as his running mate.

I remember drinking to her pioneer status and wondering which women’s names would appear on future presidential and vice presidential tickets.

(I’m still wondering.)

As I say, life in general was not so different 20 years ago.

Take baseball, for instance, and the role it plays in presidential politics.

John F. Kerry hustled to attend Sunday night’s game at Fenway Park, altering his campaign schedule before the convention in Boston so he could be there in time for the Red Sox’s game against the Yankees.

“Couldn’t miss it,” he said.

He received oodles of free air time, waving to the Fenway fans, tossing out a ceremonial first pitch and even granting an interview to that noted maker and breaker of America’s political news, ESPN.

Well, who could blame him?

A baseball op is a useful tool in any political arena. And you can bet Kerry will have a perfectly glib response ready when New Yorkers ask him down the road why they should vote for a guy who roots for the Red Sox.

Perhaps he can pull a Hillary Rodham Clinton tactic out of his hat, donning a New York cap when the situation suits him.

(I am sure she simply misplaced her Cubs cap when she ran for the U.S. Senate.)

Funny that as such a big fan of a big-league baseball team, Kerry happens to be running for president against a guy, George W. Bush, who once owned one.

Bush is a world leader who often jokes that the great mistake of his life is that when he owned the Texas Rangers, he let them trade Sammy Sosa.

A possibility exists that when the 2004 American League playoffs roll around in October, the battle for the pennant could end up being between the Red Sox and the Rangers.

This could prove interesting in many ways, not the least of which is that these teams are two of the biggest losers in the history of baseball … and one would have to win.

I can see it now: Kerry gets nominated in Boston this week and works the Red Sox into his acceptance speech. You know, about the magnificent victories in store for everyone from Massachusetts in both October and November.

Later on, Bush will be renominated … in New York. I somehow doubt that he will mention either the Red Sox or the Rangers in his speech.

If Bush is smart, he might try identifying himself as a Yankees fan, the way Hillary Clinton did.

Of course, if Kerry is smart, as soon as he gets to Chicago to campaign he will remind everybody that Bush is the guy who once traded Sosa.