In eighteen months or so, baseball is going to need a new commissioner. Unlike the NBA, where David Stern is handing the job off to his longtime Deputy Commissioner, it's not at all clear who the baseball owners might be thinking of to succeed Selig.
I have heard various names thrown out there.
Bob Costas -- Would probably be very good for the game in the long run but has no chance of getting the job. The owners don't want a Commissioner who might tell them that some of Bud's revenue-maximizing schemes are actually not in the best interests of the game or the fans.
Joe Torre -- A name that's getting a lot of mentions. Is currently working in the MLB front office. Having seen the man Derek Jeter calls "Mr. Torre" up close and personal for many years as Yankee manager, I'm not that impressed with his potential to be a good Commissioner. But since one of the job requirements is not managing a bullpen, he's got that going for him.
Peter Gammons -- Ummm . . . no. Please God, no.
George W. Bush -- Was managing general partner of the Texas Rangers for five years. Might be interested in the job (expressed an interest before running for President). And he once fired Bobby Valentine . . . so that's a plus. The union will hate this choice, obviously.
Condoleeza Rice -- Purely in personal terms I'd like to see the first dominatrix Commissioner.
Bill Clinton -- The union would like him, he's a great talker, and generally a fun guy. He and A-Rod could cruise chicks during playoff games (although he'll have to find Hillary another gig that entails her traveling a lot).
Sandy Alderson -- Longtime baseball man. Did an amazing job bringing the umpires to heel (all his good work since undone, alas . . . thanks again, Bud). Might well want the job, too -- how much fun can being the GM of the Mets be right now?
There are others . . . mostly guys currently working in MLB in some capacity or other. I'm thinking the owners may go for a more corporate type -- in their eyes baseball is so much more about the business than about the game, and the union and player agents are relentlessly pulling in one direction. (That direction can be summed by the urban but eloquent "mo' money, mo' money!" - as in more of the owners' money) So the union is going to distrust whoever the new Commissioner is . . . the owners will be smart enough (I think) that if they do go for a corporate type, it won't be someone with a perceived history of union-busting.
The new Commissioner will have to navigate a tricky course, assuming his or her term lasts more than a couple of years. There will a contentious labor negotiation -- baseball's economic model may not be sustainable for a sport that is no longer "America's Pastime" in terms of popularity. There will be a new TV deal to be done at some point -- will ESPN and Fox keep paying the rates they're paying? The big market/small market dichotomy will get worse as big market teams pull back on spending, resulting in no more luxury tax revenues and a growing resentment of the revenue-sharing arrangement. There is the perception that the fans want more extensive/invasive PED testing, a move the union will have to resist. Small market teams will continue to agitate for a salary cap (although their appetite for a cap diminishes markedly when it's pointed out that a cap includes a salary minimum as well).
The qualitative aspects of the game need work, too. The umpires are back to their personal strike zones. I personally find the games generally less exciting lately -- even with the infusion of international talent, the game feels diluted. This may well have to do with the loss of black players in recent years (I recently read that the percentage of black MLB players is down to 8%). The new Commissioner needs to do a lot of work to re-popularize baseball in inner cities and among young people.
If the baseball owners are true to past form, they will choose a new CEO (let's call the job what it now is) with less regard for the thorny issues and more regard for who will best pepretuate the status quo, because they're making money, the stands are more or less full (at least in terms of tickets sold -- I see lots of empty seats on TV), there is labor peace and the gullible pubic believes Selig's nonsense about MLB having "the toughest drug policy in professional sports" (this is like saying that your hen house only has one fox in it).
The owners have eighteen months to pick someone. Since I don't think I'm getting that call, I look forward to watching the process unfold.
Showing posts with label baseball. Show all posts
Showing posts with label baseball. Show all posts
This Bud Was Never For You
Bud Selig announced that he is retiring after next season. (What is it with these sports commissioners and giving 18 months' notice? David Stern just did the same thing. Will the search process really be that long? Are we looking for someone to throw out ceremonial pitches, or to run the Large Hadron Collider?)
Anyway, assuming this retirement is legit (Bud tried to retire a few years ago but supposedly the owners twisted his arm to stay; personally I doubt it took all that much persuading), a few words about his tenure as Commissioner of Baseball are in order.
Good riddance to bad rubbish.
Prior to becoming Commissioner, Selig was owner of the Milwaukee Brewers. Selig, in conjunction with several other owners, a group known as the Midwest Mafia, engineered the infamous collusion scheme, in which team owners agreed clandestinely to not make offers to free agents. The players' union, not surprisingly, saw exactly what was going on and took baseball to court. This started in 1985; finally, in 1990, the owners settled, agreeing to pay the players' union $280 million (about $500 million in today's money).
In the wake of the 1994 strike, the owners recognized that a fundamental change had taken place. The fact of the players' union meant that whereas in the past the "best interests of baseball" was the guiding principle, and the Commissioner was the one to define those best interests, now Federal labor law was the controlling authority, and the union aggressively filed grievances and hauled the owners into court for every real or perceived violation. It culminated with the 1994 labor stalemate that cost baseball the end of the season, playoffs, and World Series. (This is about Bud Selig, but it should be noted that Marvin Miller and Donald Fehr belong in at least as low a circle of Hell as Bud does.)
In this climate, the owners decided that the even-handed approach of a Faye Vincent or Bart Giamatti was no longer called for. If the players were going to have the courts, the owners were going to have a guy in the top job who was unabashedly in it for the owners' interests.
Enter Bud.
My most vivid memories of 1998 are two. First and foremost, the Yankees burning a path through baseball en route to winning it all. Second was Bud's face on TV, seemingly every night, waving the pom poms while roided-up goons laid waste to the home run records. Over and over the grinning fool praised Sosa and McGwire for "bringing baseball back" after the debacle of 1994. Meanwhile, the Yankees just quietly (and 100% cleanly, as far as anyone can tell) just kept winning and winning and winning.
Like all owners, Bud's concern for the fans is strictly lip service. He would have you believe that exclusive windows for Fox and ESPN are somehow good for you, the fan. He shoved the World Baseball Classic down our throats, which is beloved everywhere except the United States. Apparently, selling a few more jerseys in Antwerp and Shanghai and Melbourne is somehow good for you, the fan. World Series games that no one on the East Coast can stay awake to see the end of are somehow good for you, the fan. That baseball has been passed standing still by the NFL (and college football in many places) is somehow good for you, the fan.
Then to top it all off, Bud gets religion about performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs). Apparently, what was good in 1998, what "brought the game back," was no longer good in the late 2000s. In fact, worse than "no good." More like really really evil. Like, more evil than what was once America's Game being run by a used-car salesman whose venality is his best feature.
The upshot of all this new-found religion about the evils of PEDs? Barry Bonds convicted of the Federal equivalent of jaywalking, and the Mitchell Report's star informant shown up in Federal Court for the perjuring hanger-on he had always came off as. Well done, Bud.
Enjoy your retirement, Bud, and the undoubtedly obscenely generous severance the owners are going to give you. Just please, please, please stay the hell away from baseball.
Anyway, assuming this retirement is legit (Bud tried to retire a few years ago but supposedly the owners twisted his arm to stay; personally I doubt it took all that much persuading), a few words about his tenure as Commissioner of Baseball are in order.
Good riddance to bad rubbish.
Prior to becoming Commissioner, Selig was owner of the Milwaukee Brewers. Selig, in conjunction with several other owners, a group known as the Midwest Mafia, engineered the infamous collusion scheme, in which team owners agreed clandestinely to not make offers to free agents. The players' union, not surprisingly, saw exactly what was going on and took baseball to court. This started in 1985; finally, in 1990, the owners settled, agreeing to pay the players' union $280 million (about $500 million in today's money).
In the wake of the 1994 strike, the owners recognized that a fundamental change had taken place. The fact of the players' union meant that whereas in the past the "best interests of baseball" was the guiding principle, and the Commissioner was the one to define those best interests, now Federal labor law was the controlling authority, and the union aggressively filed grievances and hauled the owners into court for every real or perceived violation. It culminated with the 1994 labor stalemate that cost baseball the end of the season, playoffs, and World Series. (This is about Bud Selig, but it should be noted that Marvin Miller and Donald Fehr belong in at least as low a circle of Hell as Bud does.)
In this climate, the owners decided that the even-handed approach of a Faye Vincent or Bart Giamatti was no longer called for. If the players were going to have the courts, the owners were going to have a guy in the top job who was unabashedly in it for the owners' interests.
Enter Bud.
My most vivid memories of 1998 are two. First and foremost, the Yankees burning a path through baseball en route to winning it all. Second was Bud's face on TV, seemingly every night, waving the pom poms while roided-up goons laid waste to the home run records. Over and over the grinning fool praised Sosa and McGwire for "bringing baseball back" after the debacle of 1994. Meanwhile, the Yankees just quietly (and 100% cleanly, as far as anyone can tell) just kept winning and winning and winning.
Like all owners, Bud's concern for the fans is strictly lip service. He would have you believe that exclusive windows for Fox and ESPN are somehow good for you, the fan. He shoved the World Baseball Classic down our throats, which is beloved everywhere except the United States. Apparently, selling a few more jerseys in Antwerp and Shanghai and Melbourne is somehow good for you, the fan. World Series games that no one on the East Coast can stay awake to see the end of are somehow good for you, the fan. That baseball has been passed standing still by the NFL (and college football in many places) is somehow good for you, the fan.
Then to top it all off, Bud gets religion about performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs). Apparently, what was good in 1998, what "brought the game back," was no longer good in the late 2000s. In fact, worse than "no good." More like really really evil. Like, more evil than what was once America's Game being run by a used-car salesman whose venality is his best feature.
The upshot of all this new-found religion about the evils of PEDs? Barry Bonds convicted of the Federal equivalent of jaywalking, and the Mitchell Report's star informant shown up in Federal Court for the perjuring hanger-on he had always came off as. Well done, Bud.
Enjoy your retirement, Bud, and the undoubtedly obscenely generous severance the owners are going to give you. Just please, please, please stay the hell away from baseball.
Opening Day
I am a baseball fan, so obviously I love Opening Day.
Corny as it is, the promise of a 0-0 record, the opportunity for fans of even the worst teams to let themselves believe for a little while . . . all this happening as spring starts to slowly pry winter's grip from the landscape. It is inspiring.
Over on the baseball blog I'll have some Opening Day observations posted at some point tonight or tomorrow, for those who might care about the actual baseball stuff.
But it's Opening Day for us all.
Happy Opening Day to you. The most American non-holiday holiday there is.
Corny as it is, the promise of a 0-0 record, the opportunity for fans of even the worst teams to let themselves believe for a little while . . . all this happening as spring starts to slowly pry winter's grip from the landscape. It is inspiring.
Over on the baseball blog I'll have some Opening Day observations posted at some point tonight or tomorrow, for those who might care about the actual baseball stuff.
But it's Opening Day for us all.
Happy Opening Day to you. The most American non-holiday holiday there is.
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