Can't come fast enough...

Exponential financial growth.

Booming attendance.

The wild-card, which many -- me included -- panned, has created much more interest.

Labor peace for the foreseeable future.

Could somebody have done better? Uh, sure. But commissioners have certainly done worse. And we'll never know how it would have turned out with somebody else in charge, just as we'll never know how the NBA would have done with somebody besides David Stern in charge.

Do I hate the steroid scandals, and the fact that World Series games are on too late for a big chuck of the population to watch them to the end? Sure. But the Players Association was always going to fight drug testing until it had no choice, and the World Series situation started well before Selig's watch.

I'm not trying to turn Bud into a saint or the greatest visionary of our times.

But I don't see how anybody can say baseball is worse off than it was before 1994.

As easy as it is to caricature and beat up on Bud.

 

Labor peace??? The friggin World Series was cancelled on his watch!

I give him credit for the Wild Card, which I was a fan of from the start. That's about it.

 

Montezuma, that is a cogent and reasonable argument that I would have trouble finding much fault with.

But Fuck Bud Selig, and fuck giving him credit for any of it.

 

Montezuma: Exactly how is Bud Selig responsible for any of that.

Let's take a look at Bud Selig with his own ideas and devices.

The labor strife in 1994 was primarily his doing, although he was pretty much of a straw man for Jerry Reinsdorf. That set baseball back for three years, and interest in the game didn't recover until 1998, which we now know was fueled by steroid-induced home runs.

Bud Selig also came up with The Baseball Network for the television package, and this was a disaster.

Bud Selig also would have reduced the number of teams - another great idea. Having a business where you reduce the number of teams - that would have been a great legacy as commissioner.

The fact that the value of teams have increased is a function of the fact that there are a limited number of teams in what is pretty much a government-sanctioned monopoly.

Baseball is a great game because it survives the people who run it.

 

Selig orchestrated one of the greatest crises in the history of the game -- the cancellation of the 1994 World Series -- and had absolutely nothing to show for it when the strike was settled the next spring.

His legacy is tainted forever by that, no matter what he did before or has done since.

 

Bud Selig is not a visionary, he is a reactionary -- and more often than not he's had to be dragged into a reaction.
He will not be remembered for any good he's brought to the game, such as interleague play or the wild card (debate semantics later, but they are steps for the good of the game).
His legacy is labor strife that forced the cancellation of the world series and a steroid issue that he embraced early with McGwire, Sosa, Bonds, et al, then had to handle because of a literal act of Congress.
Bud is not a keeper of "The Game" as a whole, but a tool of 30 different CEO's to keep their best interests -- making as much money as possible -- at heart.

There has been some good, but mostly bad.

(And if he was so good, why do we still have to listen to Berman, Morgan, Buck and McCarver?)

 

Thank you playthrough. I was concentrating on the business aspects and forgot about the All-Star game tie.

 

Who is the next commissioner? I'm almost positive the owners won't look for an independent person, like Uberroth or Vincent. Do they pick another owner? Or do they promote a lachey from within MLB's corporate offices?

One possibility -- George W. Bush.

 

Why, to make Bud look competent? I think there are some good candidates out there, maybe from within the current MLB leadership. Bush may be a nice name to throw out there, but I don't think he'd do well as the commish.

 

A labour stoppage that killed a Wolrd Series (which eventually led to the Expos leaving Montreal).

A tie in the All-Star Game.

A total conflict of interest as he (or his family) owned the Milwaukee Brewers as he was comissioner.

MLB collectively owned the Expos and turned it into a Big League farm team which could not trade for or sign players despite being in contention sometimes.

Allowing Jeff Loria to own ANOTHER team.

Steroids.

No salary cap, which in turn makes the AL East impossible to contend in.

Expanded too fast and watering down the product.

Interleague play, which pisses off a purist like me (although, I did see Clemens pitch in Detroit this summer)

LOVELY TRACK RECORD, BUD.

Oh, as for "attendance booming": I know that TOTAL NUMBERS are up, but there are more teams now than ever, and still, some people are taking in interleague games.

I do like the wild card, though.

 

So you think the record attendences and massive TV contracts would have happened no matter who was commish? I can definitely see the argument, but I don't think it happens without the wild card and the extra round in the playoffs.

There's a ton of stuff that's been listed here as to how Bud has gaffed during his tenure. But with the power the players union had when he took charge, it was a pretty tough job to bring the game to where it is now.

The isn't a salary cap, but there is a luxary tax and increased revenue sharing. There is now a drug-testing policy, with bans being enforced. And the game is certainly stronger now than it was 13 years ago.