Selig's term extended through 2012 at $15M per year

[Chip R]

Originally Posted by dfs

Frankly, I think Selig is to be COMMENDED for minimizing the player/owner friction and moving the labor troubles from the front pages to the back burner.

I think Bud has come to the slow, painful realization that taking a hard line with the players is not the way to get things done. He's probably the first post-free agent commissioner to finally realize that.

[RedsManRick]

The purpose of the commissioner is to serve as an independent arbiter between labor and ownership, representing the interests of the game when the two sides are unable to reach agreements. Instead, Bud has interpreted the role to be that of the CEO of the industry. Whether or not his changes have helped grow the game are beside the point in my book. Growing the game is not his job.

[westofyou]

Originally Posted by RedsManRick

The purpose of the commissioner is to serve as an independent arbiter between labor and ownership, representing the interests of the game when the two sides are unable to reach agreements.

Really?

The commish has been representing the owners whims since the mid 40's and the first guy who held the job was hardly an arbitrator who valued the position of both sides.

It's a figurehead position playing the back room votes of the owners consensus in public, also in public they broker deals with their semi equals the players union, whose thin moment of earning power causes them to both accept less and demand less. It's like the push me pull me, it seems it's moving one way for one group, then the other... but in reality they all move in unison.

[RedsManRick]

Originally Posted by westofyou

Really?

The commish has been representing the owners whims since the mid 40's and the first guy who held the job was hardly an arbitrator who valued the position of both sides.

It's a figurehead position playing the back room votes of the owners consensus in public, also in public they broker deals with their semi equals the players union, whose thin moment of earning power causes them to both accept less and demand less. It's like the push me pull me, it seems it's moving one way for one group, then the other... but in reality they all move in unison.

And I would level that same criticism against those past commissioners. The entire realization of the position relative to it's described purpose is a farce. Just kill the position, have the owners elect one of their own and be done with it. The way it plays out now, the only real arbitration function the commissioner serves is between large and small market owners -- which I suppose is how it's been for 70 years.

[Sea Ray]

In the real world the Commissioner is nominated and paid by the owners. The players have no say in the matter. It follows that he'll represent the interests of the owners.

[Yachtzee]

Originally Posted by dfs

but that's not the commissioner's mandate. He's an employee for the owners who...well, duh....love the status quo.

The owners are FAR more concerned about maximizing revenue than they are with a balanced playing field and Bud is all about maximizing revenue.

Contraction was a smoke screen to get stadiums built and to allow the Montreal-Washington transfer and it worked brilliantly.

I seriously don't get the Selig-hate. The man has done exactly what the owners want. Frankly, I think Selig is to be COMMENDED for minimizing the player/owner friction and moving the labor troubles from the front pages to the back burner.

I don't think contraction was a smoke screen. The Twins were one of the teams most likely to be contracted and they got nowhere with a new stadium bid until after contraction had already been taken off the table.

I don't credit him with maximizing revenue because he hasn't really done much for that. The business of revenue maximization has primarily been the province of the individual teams. The Yankees by themselves have done more to increase the revenues of MLB as a whole than any initiatives from the commissioners office. Sure, he's implemented some degree of revenue sharing among clubs. But he has done little to improve the health of the game in all of its markets. IMO, a good commissioner, while pushing for the Red Sox and Yankees to share more of the wealth, he would also push for teams like the Royals, Pirates, and especially the Marlins to invest more of that revenue sharing money in ways that improve the quality of their play AND enhance revenues for the ballclub. Part of the reason why the Yankees have sympathy with players and fans when it comes to revenue sharing is that some teams use it as a form of billionaire welfare.

I also don't see how you can really give Selig all that much credit for peace between the players and the owners, considering the only baseball strike to cancel a World Series was under his watch. Couple that with the brinksmanship he engaged in with contraction and the whole steroids era, and it looks more and more like Selig isn't some proactive champion who has done much good for baseball. Instead I see him as a passive caretaker whose strong point has been building a consensus among the owners for compromise positions. While it's a valuable asset, it's hardly the mark of a great commissioner.

I don't hate Selig. I just think the sport really needs a visionary commissioner who can help owners realize that players aren't their adversaries but actually their best assets and that having a good, well marketed organization in Kansas City is just as important for the long-term health of the game as having one in New York or Boston. I'd like to see a commissioner who promotes the game so that national broadcasts get good rating even when the Yankees and Red Sox aren't playing. The commissioner works for the owners, it's true. However, the mark of a good commissioner is one who can convince his bosses that something is in their long-term best interest even when they can't see it themselves.

[westofyou]

Originally Posted by RedsManRick

have the owners elect one of their own and be done with it.

Isn't that what they already have done?

[RedsManRick]

Originally Posted by westofyou

Isn't that what they already have done?

Well, yes. I meant that they shouldn't pretend that it is anything but that. The window dressing of impartiality serves no purpose.

[RFS62]

Originally Posted by westofyou

Really?

The commish has been representing the owners whims since the mid 40's and the first guy who held the job was hardly an arbitrator who valued the position of both sides.

It's a figurehead position playing the back room votes of the owners consensus in public, also in public they broker deals with their semi equals the players union, whose thin moment of earning power causes them to both accept less and demand less. It's like the push me pull me, it seems it's moving one way for one group, then the other... but in reality they all move in unison.

Yep. He's up there to take the heat from the Feds. The other Bosses are the real power.

[Roy Tucker]

This pretty well sums up my feelings...

http://www.suntimes.com/sports/telan...rick18.article

Doin' a heck of a job, Bud
After Selig received a comeuppance on Capitol Hill as enabler of the Steroid Era, the owners gave him a multi-million-dollar pat on the back

January 18, 2008
BY RICK TELANDER Sun-Times Columnist

Clearly, there is a wild disconnect between major-league baseball and and the rest of the world.

Less than 48 hours after he was told by the U.S. House of Representatives that he and baseball players union chief Donald Fehr basically were responsible for allowing steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs to infest baseball the way holes infest Swiss cheese, commissioner Bud Selig received a contract extension from the club owners through 2012.

''Believable Bud,'' 73, made almost $15 million in 2005, the last year his baseball tax returns are available for scrutiny.

I know, as does everyone in this country, that the citadel of capitalism worships at the temple of profit.

Free enterprise and free markets create the most profit for the most people for the most time. And that, as Adam Smith, the philosopher and not the minor-leaguer, declared, is good.

Baseball under Selig's watch has been incredibly profitable -- $6 billion in revenue last year, more predicted this year, more next year, all of it adorned with labor peace, new arenas, attendance records, etc.

But that's business.

And business has no soul, no conscience, no children.

Ethics supposedly are within, but they hide on the sidelines while toxic waste is dumped, mortgages are squeezed, taxes are levied, syringes are filled.

What is probable cause for drug testing? Rep. Mark E. Souder (R-Ind.) asked Selig with disbelief at the congressional hearing Tuesday on Capitol Hill. Must baseball always be ''waiting until potentially the law is coming?'' Souder asked.

Shouldn't suspicion be raised about players ''when their stats are tripling from one year to the next?'' Souder continued, amazed. ''Are statistical anomalies potentially cause?''

As I listened there in the packed hearing room, I thought of Brady Anderson, on this year's Hall of Fame ballot, and how he went from 16 home runs to 50 in one season, and Lenny Dykstra (six homers to 19), and Sammy Sosa (36 to 66), and -- oh, yes -- the indicted Barry Bonds (49 to 73).
An attention deficit

Selig, of course, gave the verbal equivalent of a shrug over such mysteries. And then he signed a contract extension that will carry him along until he is 78.

It was brought to Selig's attention at the hearing that the number of players granted permission to use banned drugs for medical purposes more than tripled from 2006 to 2007.

Most of them were for attention deficit disorders, meaning the players could take handy stimulants like Adderall and Ritalin.

Though this increase was described as a potential ''epidemic'' by one drug expert, it was only a point for discussion for Selig and his gang.

Couldn't this fraudulently avuncular and ever-so-conveniently-clueless leader from Wisconsin say, just once, the most obvious thing: Without greenies, guys are getting their speed from prescriptions.

Selig has the most wonderful way of pushing his unruly hair to the side, cupping his hand about his ear and appearing like your helpful Uncle Willy.

But it's a ruse.

And it's a ruse because it works.

Consider that under his and the oily Fehr's watch, three players in 2006 and two in 2007 actually had legal scripts for androgen deficiencies, meaning they could take legal testosterone -- i.e. 'roids.

Gary Wadler, chairman of the World Anti-Doping Agency, told the Washington Post that this was so unusual, he could think of only one Olympic athlete who was granted such an exemption: a sailor who had lost both of his testicles.

Back in March 2005, a national USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll showed that almost 90 percent of fans thought steroids were a serious problem or worse, with 23 percent saying they had ruined the game.

But since the turnstiles keep moving, the lords of the sport keep winking.

On Wednesday WADA president John Fahey ripped to shreds Selig's and Fehr's contention to Congress that there is no HGH test available and that storing players' blood for future testing is unreliable and not worth doing.

''Demeaning'' and ''reprehensible'' are two of the words Fahey used.

Again, adjectives wither and vanish in the shadows of the operative word: money.

And because of money, Selig rules.
'It can erode our humanity'

Bottom-lineism is a cynical thing to ponder when it involves America's Pastime and its effect on kids, but we see it everywhere on the landscape -- the lessons of decency and fair play trumped by the lessons of blind success.

In a remarkable essay in the New York Times on Wednesday, former Cubs outfielder Doug Glanville wrote eloquently of the thing that drives baseball players to take illicit drugs, to cheat, to do anything at all to stave off the inevitable. Fear.

''We're scared of failure, aging, vulnerability, leaving too soon, being passed up -- and in the quest to conquer those fears, we are inspired by those who do whatever it takes to rise above and beat those odds. We call it 'drive' or 'ambition,' but when doing 'whatever it takes' leads us down the wrong road, it can erode our humanity.''

Selig can laugh at all that philosophical mumbo-jumbo.

Ethics is not his deal.

Business is.

And business is good.

[cincinnati chili]

Originally Posted by Sea Ray

In the real world the Commissioner is nominated and paid by the owners. The players have no say in the matter. It follows that he'll represent the interests of the owners.

This is exactly right. He's not independent and shouldn't be. However, it's in the best interest of the people who pay him to make the game as appealing as possible. Sometimes extending an olive branch to the players WHO ARE YOUR PRODUCT is the best way to do that.

I'm convinced that baseball has thrived in spite of Selig, not because of Selig. Right place. Right time. Very, very lucky. He's made bad decision after bad decision. If David Stern had been commissioner of baseball for the past 15 years, I bet its popularity would be much closer to the NFL than it is now.

[M2]

The conspiracy theory running around is that Selig's extension might have a lot to do with his eventual successor. Supposedly there's a certain fellow, whom we'll call POTUS for the sake of anonymity, who wants the job, but who would be a disastrous choice at this moment in time. The thinking is that perhaps this POTUS will become more palatable in another five years.

[Sea Ray]

A long time ago when I saw GW Bush in his front row box seat at Rangers games, I commented how he'd found a far superior "life" than his family of politicians. He'd sit there with a big box of popcorn, hot dog and a drink and looked like he'd found real happiness. Then he allowed the GOP to talk him into running for Governor and yeah, you know the rest. He'd have been much better off running the Texas Rangers and maybe eventually being Commissioner for $15mill a year. I wonder is he regrets ever being roped into politics.

[KronoRed]

Originally Posted by M2

The conspiracy theory running around is that Selig's extension might have a lot to do with his eventual successor. Supposedly there's a certain fellow, whom we'll call POTUS for the sake of anonymity, who wants the job, but who would be a disastrous choice at this moment in time. The thinking is that perhaps this POTUS will become more palatable in another five years.

That's a horrifying though.

[SunDeck]

If POTUS becomes the next commissioner, I predict the player's union will be the next Evil Empire.