Good stuff from Will Leitch about Commissioner-for-Life Allan H. Selig. Leitch’s big finish:
Does Bud Selig Lead The Commissioner Standings?
Bud Selig will always be a polarizing figure. Baseball fans fall into two camps: those who think he is a malevolent idiot and those who think he is merely an idiot. (And don’t get me started on the proposal to add a second wild-card team.) But when you clear out the public-relations gaffes and the ugly ties, Goodell and Stern would love to be in Selig’s position right now, with happy owners, happy players, and more fans than ever. Yep, ole Bud had a few tricks up his sleeve after all, even if that sleeve belongs to a twenty-year-old off-the-rack suit from Sears covered in taco sauce. He’s a slob like a fox.
In my old job, I used to rip Commissioner Bud somewhat regularly. I don’t have a comprehensive list or anything, but I distinctly remember being annoyed when he took the field after Mark McGwire hit his 62nd home run in 1998 -- thereby sucking every breath of life from the moment -- and I remember being incensed by his public cheerleading of contraction, which was never anything more than a cynical and disgusting negotiating ploy. Then there’s the stadium game, which relies on misinformation and a very public form of blackmail.
But my chief complaint has always been that the sport’s public face just happened to be miscast in that role (though I suppose I did occasionally accuse Selig of malevolence, too). And I wasn’t real shy about writing what I thought.
This brought two results. One, Commissioner Selig called me at home, and went through one of my columns line by line, telling me what I’d gotten wrong. And two, eventually I was instructed by management to ease off. I wasn’t told to stop writing negatively about the Commissioner; rather, it was suggested that I stop having so much fun doing it.
Which did have, as you might imagine, a chilling effect.
I didn’t hold that against Selig or his minions. They were doing their job, my bosses were doing theirs, and mine got just a little less enjoyable. Which was fine. The planet survived.
And of course baseball has thrived. Five years ago, I might have argued that Selig’s legacy was mixed, at best. It’s still mixed -- everything is mixed -- but I believe he’ll go down as perhaps the most influential and effective Commissioner in the game’s history. Which isn’t a bad legacy at all.
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