It is always difficult to tell while events are ongoing which among them will matter in the long run. For instance, with the year now drawing to a close, who among us could agree on which were the most important baseball stories of 2006? One person might say it was the rise of an astonishing class of young pitchers in the American League that had the biggest impact on the game, while another would argue it was the emergence of an enormous disparity in talent between the American and National Leagues. While still another person might say that Andy MacPhail’s resignation as president of the Chicago Cubs and his assumption of a role as heir apparent to Commissioner Bud Selig was more consequential. Another faction might point to the World Baseball Classic as the most important event of the year, or the ease with which a new collective bargaining agreement was negotiated. All or none of them could be right. It will take time and perspective to tell.

To predict what will count in 2007 is doubtless a bit foolish, but it’s already clear that of the big stories set to unfold in the coming year, several will have massive ramifications for the future of the game. Sadly, not all of them will be good.

The most important story of 2007 will be steroids. This week, a federal appeals court ruled that investigators will be allowed to use the results of supposedly confidential drug tests ballplayers took in 2003 in their investigation of the sport’s drug scandal. The names of 100 players who tested positive for drugs might be leaked.

It’s unclear where this story will go. The disclosure of player names will have a real impact on the public. The general impression many still have that drug use is mainly the province of wicked, muscled-up sluggers will be dealt a huge blow, and for the first time many will realize how widespread the use of drugs was, even among some unexpected players.

To the layman, all of this seems a real example of prosecutorial overreaching. No one wants federal agents rifling through their confidential medical records and then leaking them to the press. Moralistic impulses will come into conflict with libertarian instincts — a perfect bit of political theater for the most American of games.

I have no idea how the public will react, but it’s as easy to imagine the scandal finally causing the kind of widespread public revulsion it has yet to cause toward ballplayers, as it is to imagine mass outrage at overzealous feds creatively interpreting the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution. These possibilities mark this as the story of the year.

An issue that will be far more important in the long run is the game’s continued exploitation of the Internet for everything from game broadcasts to ticket sales. Because all teams share Internet revenue equally, and because it’s clear we’re moving toward a day when broadband takes over from broadcast and cable as the main platform on which people watch baseball games, this is what matters most to the game right now. It will, over time, greatly narrow revenue disparities between teams, and thus rank with western expansion or the transformation of the independent leagues into modern farm systems as a basic alteration of the game’s structure.

The question right now is, who will control this process? The central agent in charge of all MLB Web sites, Major League Baseball Advanced Media, exists now as a semi-independent entity, and there have been rumors for years that it will actually be taken public. Its existence as an independent power center would seem to pose an enormous threat to the ever-increasing centralization that’s taken place under Selig’s watch. MLBAM could become an eviscerated appendage of the commissioner’s office, a fully public entity, or simply continue on its current path. This will be the issue to watch in 2007.

Beyond these two big stories, several more will warrant close attention in the next 12 months. The continued rationalization of the Yankees’ baseball operation is a big deal. The team’s stockpiling of young talent and newfound unwillingness to burn money could result, very shortly, in a $200 million team being run with almost no inefficiency, which would make the Yankees essentially unbeatable — and likely result in even more drastic changes to the game’s economic structure than those that have already been put in place in an attempt to contain the game’s hyperpower.

The internationalization of the game also matters. After the Daisuke Matsuzaka farce, it’s clear that changes will have to be made in the relationship between MLB and Japan. These could take the form of anything from American teams signing teenage Japanese players to a complete liberalization of the talent market that would allow trades to be made between Boston and Seibu as easily as they’re made between Boston and Oakland.

Finally, Barry Bonds’s chase of Henry Aaron’s career home run record will matter. It will be a time for the most ridiculous chin-stroking pontification (some to come in this space, no doubt). It will also be a time for Americans to celebrate Aaron, a real national hero, in the way he deserved to be celebrated when he originally broke Babe Ruth’s record. Bonds is simply disgusting, and there’s a decent chance he’ll be indicted for tax evasion or perjury while trying to break Aaron’s record, but this chase doesn’t have to be about him. Let’s hope it’s not. Best to all for the New Year.

tmarchman@nysun.com