Houston 1, Boston 0

When I turn out the light after midnight, I find myself worrying about the Yankees. I worry even more, though, about Stephen Wong.

Wong can't throw a slider, or hit one, either. But until recently he was one of the top scientists, working in one of the hottest fields of research, at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. Now Wong is one of the top scientists, working in one of the hottest fields of research, in Houston.

"Basically we are in the 21st century. With the advent of the Web, open access to online information, and convenient means of travel, the world is literally flat," Wong told me from Houston, where he is chief of medical physics and vice chairman of radiology at Methodist Hospital and director of the bioinformatics program at the Methodist Hospital Research Institute. He took most of his lab with him, about 20 people in all, mostly Asian scientists.

"It is as easy to collaborate and do science with people across states as with people next door to you," he says. "I came across most of my Harvard colleagues more often in outside conferences and meetings than in Boston. No one place can lock into intellectual capital by location alone."

In a star economy, it is stars like Wong we are counting on to again reinvent New England's future. And now Wong is telling us that the old rules no longer apply, that Boston no longer has some inherent intellectual lock over places like Houston. Or two-score cities around the globe for that matter.

Academics have always come and gone, of course. But the competition for the Stephen Wongs, not only scientists but now economic building blocks, has never been greater. Every university or hospital president spends significant time trying to hang onto stars and recruit new ones. Last week it was Boston University's president Robert A. Brown, who was working to counter an offer to one of his top scientists. "It becomes a game of love and affection," Brown said. In short, what is it going to take in money, space, equipment, and post-docs to keep you?

Democracy is wonderful; we're all equal in the eyes of the law. But make no mistake: It is the elite few who are the difference-makers in companies, in economies, in sports. That is what makes stars like Stephen Wong and the Yankees' Alex Rodriguez so valuable.

As a scientist and inventor, Wong helped develop the first inkjet printer production and the online trading system at Charles Schwab. He moved from industry to medicine three years ago "to do something meaningful." If it were about the money, he says, he would have stayed on Wall Street.

Wong, 47, gets three or four pitches a year to move. He was finally persuaded to go to Houston by Dr. King Li, with whom he had worked on molecular imaging. Boston has its famed Longwood Medical Center, but the Texas Medical Center, Wong's new home, is the world's largest medical center, with 13 hospitals and two medical schools.

"They gave him an offer he couldn't refuse," says Dr. Steven Seltzer, chairman of radiology at the Brigham.

Houston is very hot, Wong says. But it has its advantages. It is newer, he says, with more collaboration and fewer institutional barriers than Boston. "It seems they need me much more than Harvard did," he says.

Everyone likes to be courted. And Boston's labs remained well-stocked with some of the best talent anywhere. But it is worth remembering that the whole world wants what we have. And the gap between them and us is not nearly what it once was.

As they say at the bottom of all those mutual fund ads, "past performance is no guarantee of future returns." Fidelity, for instance, is now chasing Vanguard. The Boston Celtics are chasing almost everyone.

Steve Bailey is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at bailey@globe.com.