At this point, it is all about the legacy of one man, little
else.
Bud Selig has been the Commissioner of Baseball since 1992,
first on an acting basis, but officially so since 1998. During that time
period, major league baseball has enjoyed a period of unrivaled financial
growth and success.
That is the official version, anyway, the one Selig wants to
appear on the plaque that will unquestionably be on display one day in
Cooperstown. That is also unintentionally appropriate, for the just as
Cooperstown’s claim to have a role in the history of baseball is entirely
spurious, so too, will be those words on that plaque.
Measured only by the dollar, Selig’s tenure has been a
success. However, by almost any other method, it has been a failure, for during
his tenure whatever special place baseball still held in American society and
culture has irreparably eroded. More than that however, baseball used to matter. Now, despite its financial
health, the game is in many ways like an invalid living on an old fortune,
wealthy but sequestered, important only to those who still need to keep the old
boy alive to live off the crumbs that drop from his lap.
No one really argues that baseball is still “the National
Pastime.” If there ever was such a title, it probably belongs to football now
(although if I were a betting man with a long view, I’d put my money on soccer taking
that crown in another decade or two). In its lust for the almighty dollar, baseball
under Selig, rather than to keep its base as wide as possible to insure future
growth, chose instead to squeeze a shrinking market ever harder. The return was
higher, to be sure, but at the same it helped turn a game that was once played
almost everywhere by everybody into a specialty sport, a niche activity whose
future growth opportunities are limited. This lust to squeeze an industry dry
just so a handful of executives can earn a bonus, get rich and then cash out is
the same limited thinking that has brought down any number of American industries
over the last decade or more. Baseball may well be next,
So there’s that.
At the same time, under Selig, the credibility of the game
has been shredded. Under his limited sense of leadership, the game chose not
just to ignore PEDs, but to revel in their impact, to juice the game
artificially after a period of labor strife. Did they plan this? No. Did they
see it happen and get all goose-bumpy, and start drooling at the financial
rewards? Absolutely. As long as the checks cleared it mattered not that a host
of records essentially became meaningless, that history was devalued, or that
fully two decades of seasonal results are suspect (including Boston’s long
awaited world championships in 2004 and 2007). All in the name of short-term
gain, baseball under Selig chose to insult the intelligence of several
generations of fans in favor of those who came to the game, not as fans, but as
corporate guests.
Baseball has always been a business, but for years its
success depended, at least in part, on the ease with which it was easy to
forget that. All pretense of that is gone now. Baseball is only business, and business is the only measure that matters. Witness
the changes to the All-Star game, the playoffs, the escalating cost of watching
the game, in person, on TV, or the Internet. If there is a National Pastime
anymore, it is the ATM.
And let’s not forget drug testing.
Baseball doesn’t have a policy, it has a PR policy, now that
the horse is long gone and the barn burned, that is hustling to clean up the
stall to hoodwink future historians into thinking they ever really cared. Despite
all this, players keep getting caught, certain players are allowed to skate
(why, who could I ever be thinking of?), but Selig touts his policy, falsely
and knowingly, as the toughest in sports. If it’s so tough, how come so many guys
keep using?
What it is, including the suspensions being handed out now, is the most cynical CYA move ever imagined, designed
to make it look like he was doing something while his larger policies and
philosophies, from top to bottom, helped create, perpetuate and then celebrate
the very climate he now seeks, belatedly, to control. And all to make sure his
vaunted legacy, one that now pays him around $30 million annually – equal if
not greater than any player – remains unstained, his bronze plaque untarnished.
If I really cared anymore, I’d say the sooner Bud Selig is
in Cooperstown, and out of the game, the better. The problem is, I’m not sure I
do.
Some legacy.
Glenn Stout is author
of the award-winning Fenway 1912, and For more, see www.glennstout.net. You can
follow Glenn on Twitter at @GlennStout.
