Time for our annual preseason look at the top baseball players searched online -- including active, retired, and deceased players. Based on searches over the past four weeks, here are the most popular ballplayers, with their ranking last year in parentheses:

1) Jackie Robinson (1)
2) Babe Ruth (2)
3) Hank Aaron (3)
4) Derek Jeter (4) *
5) Willie Mays (19)
6) Roberto Clemente (7)
7) Sammy Sosa (9) *
8) Sandy Koufax (-)
9) Pete Rose (15)
10) Nomar Garciaparra (20) *

11) Cal Ripken Jr. (-)
12) Yogi Berra (14)
13) Lou Gehrig (11)
14) Alex Rodriguez (10) *
15) Mike Piazza (6) *
16) Satchel Paige (-)
17) Barry Bonds (13) *
18) Ted Williams (-)
19) Ty Cobb (17)
20) Mark McGwire (8)

You'll notice a couple of baseball legends are higher than usual this year because the four-week period we are measuring overlaps with the end of Black History Month. Willie Mays was a particularly popular subject for Black History Month this year, much more than usual, but Satchel Paige moves up as well.

Once again, most of the baseball players searched on Lycos are no longer active, partly because recently retired stars like Cal Ripken and Mark McGwire get more searches than current all-stars. With only six players (noted with asterisks) in the top 20, here are the other players who make up the active top 10:

21) Barry Zito
23) Roger Clemens
24) Pedro Martinez
25) Ichiro Suzuki

Last year's biggest riser, Ichiro Suzuki, is this year's biggest decliner, from #5 to #25. As for 2003's biggest risers, both are getting searches related to their personal lives. Former Dodgers star Sandy Koufax has been in the news after a New York Post column alleged that he was a closeted homosexual; the incident caused Koufax to cut his ties with the Dodgers, who like the Post are owned by News Corp. Red Sox star Nomar Garciaparra, on the other hand, is famous for being part of sports' greatest heterosexual couple, now that he is engaged to marry women's soccer icon Mia Hamm.

Two other active players who are getting more searches than you might expect include Yankees pitcher David Wells, thanks to his controversial new autobiography, and Yankees outfielder Hideki Matsui, the latest import from Japan (and pride of the Lycos 50 AL fantasy squad, the infamous D-Flo Humpty Funk).

Don't forget that FOX Sports on Lycos has tons of great baseball information -- FOX is the network of the World Series, after all!

TOMORROW: The war begins, and impacts the new Lycos 50.