Bud Selig To Receive Contract Extension

Remember when baseball commissioner Bud Selig said he’d absolutely, positively retire at the end of his current contract in 2012? That was reported two years ago, and the link also says:

A quick Google search turns up a 2006 article in which Selig claims that he’ll happily retire in 2009 and references a prior claim by Selig in 2003 that he would retire in 2006. It also mentions that during his six years as acting commissioner, he repeatedly said he wouldn’t take the job full-time. So Selig’s been about to retire for nearly all of his 20 years at the helm of America’s pastime.(H/T: Tweet from Kevin Kaduk)

Two days ago, Bill Madden wrote in the New York Daily News that Selig would likely be given 20 million reasons to stay:

Perhaps that’s because there isn’t a single person in baseball who believes Selig, who turns 78 in July, is going anywhere any time soon − despite his avowed intention of returning to his alma mater, the U. of Wisconsin, to teach the history of sports (where he would then truly fit the “Nutty Professor” moniker my Daily News colleague Bob Raissman bestowed on him). In fact, even Selig’s closest friends find laughable the notion of him walking away from a job that pays upwards of $20 million per year, along with the perks of a private jet, to teach sports history.Anyway, this is all relevant because of this Buster Olney tweet:

Not surprisingly, MLB Commissioner Bud Selig will get an extension this week at the owners’ meetings, of at least two years.Selig, who took over as acting commissioner in 1992 (his official title until 1998 was “Chairman of the Major League Executive Council”), is already the second-longest serving commissioner in history at 20 years, behind only Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis (who served 24 years until his death in 1944). Selig will turn 78 in July; about a week after that he’ll pass Landis as the oldest man to serve as commissioner.