It's time to contract Bud Selig

Friday, January 11, 2002
John J. Mesh

To contract or not to contract, that is the question. But don't look for the current leadership, or alleged leadership, of Major League Baseball to do the noble thing. That's because current commissioner and former owner Bud Selig is merely a puppet of the owners.

It's time for Bud Seling to resign as commissioner of Major League Baseball. In other words, he should be contracted. While Selig takes an occasional step forward for moves like retiring Jackie Robinson's No. 42 in perpetuity for all 30 teams and canceling a week of games because of the Sept. 11 tragedy, he seemingly cannot get out of the way of his own incompetence where leadership is needed.

Selig fiddles while the 26-time World Series champion New York Yankees hike their payroll close to $150 million and yet comes up with this ingenious plan to contract (eliminate in plain English) two teams for the 2002 season.

But Selig has a major conflict of interest -- how can he act in the best interest of baseball and, as a former owner, continue to be the owners' mouthpiece. He cannot serve two masters -- the game and the owners.

Selig now has another major conflict of interest.

Selig's top lawyer admitted this week that in 1995, a company controlled by Minnesota Twins owner Carl Pohlad arranged for a $3 million loan to the Milwaukee Brewers, run at the time by Selig and now by his daughter, Wendy Selig-Prieb.

Now Pohlad wants to sell the Twins and Minnesota is one of the teams rumored to be part of Selig's contraction plans. The others are the Montreal Expos, Florida Marlins and Tampa Bay Devil Rays. Montreal and Minnesota are the best bets.

The disclosure of Selig's loan so enraged Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) that Conyers is urging Selig to resign.

"This isn't a ... you know ... I'm not down on Selig," Conyers said on ESPN Radio. "I love the game, I'd love to do this thing as reasonably as I can. The only thing I'm asking is that we act a little bit more cooperatively, and stepping aside would be much more reasonable than him resigning."

Conyers earlier said the loan created an "irreparable conflict of interest" for Selig in his plan to fold two franchises, a proposal that most likely would include the Twins.

"In light of this disclosure and your apparent unwillingness to reveal other financial information that you assert supports your decision to eliminate two baseball teams, I regret that I must call on you to resign as commissioner of major league baseball," Conyers wrote in a letter to Selig that the congressman released.

Selig released a two-page letter to Conyers, saying he "was both stunned and disappointed to receive your letter." "Let me be unequivocal," Selig wrote. "The suggestions made in your letter are wholly unacceptable."

Former commissioners Bowie Kuhn, Peter Ueberroth and Fay Vincent said the loan was unprecedented and might have broken the rule prohibiting loans from the owner of one team to another without approval of all the teams in that league and the commissioner.

As much as I hate to agree with Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura, it's pretty dang difficult to sympathize with baseball's claims of $500 million in losses when Texas Rangers' shortstop Alex Rodriguez makes $25 million a year and the Yankees' newest slugger Jason Giambi will make $19 million a year.

No one -- the players or the agents -- has ever held a gun to the heads of the owners. The owners were more than willing participants in this mess.

Close to 70 percent of baseball fans sympathized with the owners during the 1994 strike. The fans turned out to be the biggest losers.

And the fans will be the losers once again if Selig's contraction plans go through. And there is a 99.99 percent chance they will go through because Selig is a rubber-stamped puppet of the owners.

While Conyers backed down somewhat from his statements, I am not. Bud Selig should resign as commissioner of baseball. He should be the one who's contracted.

John J. Mesh is the sports editor of the McCook (Neb.) Daily Gazette. The only way he'd favor contraction is that Montreal should be eliminated and the two Florida teams -- the Tampa Bay Devils and Florida Marlins -- should be merged and moved to Orlando. He can be reached at sports@mccookgazette.com.

Respond to this story

Posting a comment requires free registration: