Japanese fans wondered if Ichiro would lose the chance to defend his batting title.

In the Dominican Republic, a major league baseball strike might have hurt the economy, and Venezuelans worried that gloom over political turmoil would prevail without the game.

But with the deal to avert a strike Friday, baseball officials and fans around the world -- from Mexico City to Caracas, from San Juan to Tokyo -- breathed a sigh of relief. Fans said the players' decision to continue the season saved the sport from disillusionment in regions that have produced stars.

In Tokyo, many awoke to news of the tentative labor deal on the front page of sports tabloids, and immediately tuned in to watch the live telecast of Ichiro Suzuki and the Seattle Mariners playing Kansas City on Friday night.

"This is great news! It would have been anticlimactic if the season had suddenly just ended,'' said Takayuki Hogun, a Japanese construction worker. "It also allows Ichiro and the other Japanese there to show everyone how strong Japanese baseball is.''

Japanese baseball officials had been nervous about the possibility of a strike and its impact on a U.S.-Japan major league all-star tour planned for Nov. 9-17. Fans of this country's favorite pastime regularly comb the sports pages to check up on Ichiro's pursuit of a second straight batting title or for reports on the Los Angeles Dodgers' Hideo Nomo and a half-dozen other Japanese players in the majors.

In the Dominican Republic, baseball has helped many stars such as Vladimir Guerrero of the Montreal Expos and Sammy Sosa of the Chicago Cubs, escape poverty.

It also is a major source of revenue for the Caribbean nation, which has 74 players in the majors and more than 1,500 in the minors. This year, the Dominican Republic earned more than $100 million by taxing players' salaries, and is expected to take in more than $550,000 a day in baseball bets.

"Baseball is in all of us, but it's a triumph for all Dominicans,'' attorney Santiago Bido said.

A strike would have been "a disaster for us, like a hurricane,'' said former major leaguer Cesar Cedeno, the Dominican Republic's sports minister.

Mexico's El Imparcial newspaper in Sonora trumpeted the news Friday afternoon with the front-page headline in English: "Play Ball.'' Bordering Arizona, the northern Mexican state has long been a bastion for baseball fanatics.

In Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory that has produced such players as the New York Yankees' Bernie Williams, baseball officials were relieved.

"If a strike would have materialized, it would have been terrible for baseball,'' said Benjamin Rivera, owner of Puerto Rico's Carolina Giants.

In Venezuela, which has 35 major league players, news of the averted strike was uplifting for a country devastated by an economic crisis and the political fallout from a failed April coup.

"Thank God!'' said Jose Bello, an accountant in Caracas. "With all the problems we have here, at least there will be the World Series. That was our only entertainment, and they were going to take it away.''