Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1400: Bud Selig Speaks

Episode Date: July 5, 2019

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about Sam Malone maligning the Mariners, the unlikely career of pinch-hitter extraordinaire Mark Sweeney, the joys of watching Fernando Tatis, Jr., Bryce Harper’s Amazon store, and the definition of “MLB legend.” Then (29:43) Ben talks to Hall of Famer Bud Selig, Commissioner Emeritus and author of the new memoir […]

If loneliness did well acclaim, then everyone would call my name. I'd be a legend in my time. My time Hello. Hope you all had a happy 4th of July. Later in this episode, I will be talking to none other than Bud Selig, Hall of Famer, former commissioner and author with Phil Rogers of a new memoir that comes out next week for the good of the game. I was offered an opportunity to talk to Selig and I took it. He is a very influential figure and I think a fascinating figure, whatever you think of his legacy, which is kind of complicated. So I think we will run that interview and then you and I will reassemble after that to discuss what he said and what we think of his very long tenure in baseball. But before that, a few frivolous things to get to for me. So I recently, with my wife, Jesse, completed a binge of Cheers, which took us years. I had somewhat fond memories of seeing Cheers when it was still airing or maybe when it was in reruns when I was very young. And I used to watch it with my grandparents and would see it from time to time, but I'd never sat down and just watched from the start to the end.

There's a lot of cheers. And so it took us a long time, but it was fun. And now that it's over, we don't quite know what to do with ourselves because it was sort of the default. Well, we have 20 minutes. Let's watch a cheers. And the first thing I did to try to fill that hole was go back to Frasier, which is a show that you and I have a lot of fondness for. And I've for. Too enthusiastic about Frasier. I'm too excited about it. Yeah. Well, I've watched all of Frasier, I think,

not really in the organized way that I watch Tears, but I wanted to go back and re-watch the Frasier episodes starring Tears characters, the crossover episodes, just because I figured I would appreciate them more now having watched Tears. So the first one I watched was the one where Sam Malone crosses over into Frasier. And this is season two, episode 16. And there was a brief scene that I just clipped and will play a clip of and have just sent to you to watch as the listeners listen to it, because I thought of you when I heard it. I met this girl six months ago, and we were supposed to get married. And yesterday, I was standing in this church facing this minister, and I hear him say,

will you take this woman to be your wife? And I said, who, me? And the next thing you know, I'm running down the aisle, and I didn't stop running until I got here. So you're not in Seattle because of the Mariners? Believe me, no ballplayer is in Seattle because of the Mariners. So I am, of course, quite familiar with this. First of all, I should uh it is my firm firm belief that uh fraser is secretly just a sports show i think it's a sports show i think it's you know

sam has a particular understanding of what makes like a baseball movie right this is i think broader than just baseball although the mariners do play a large role in the series. I'm trying to remember. I'm like doing a Twitter search of myself because I know that I have talked about this on Twitter before. But my understanding, can you remind me what season and what episode this was? to episode 16 and this aired in february 1995 actually so yes the timing is kind of funny in retrospect yes so i mean i think it is an indication this is quietly making edgar's hall of fame case before we ever knew that he would have such a thing because this is very consistent with my understanding and memory of the city's impression of the franchise at the time, which admittedly is a little fuzzy because I was a small child. But this is right before. This is right before. Well, not right, right before, but pretty soon before Edgar Martinez

and that fun 95 team saved baseball in Seattle. So, yeah. He wasn't wrong. Yeah, things changed. There were some pretty good ballplayers in Seattle for a while there. And now we've come full circle and the joke works again. So if they reboot Frazier, they could make this exact same joke and it would land just as well as it did at that time.

Because Sam in this episode, he's pretending that he's in Seattle to interview for a pitching coach position. And then Fraser calls him on it here. And of course, Cheers is a great baseball show. It is just fused with baseball. And this was a nice crossover, but it's just the more things change, certain things don't. And almost 25 years later, joke about the Mariners not having good players. It works. It still works. Yeah, it's not untrue.

I'm thinking of other episodes. Like, for instance, there is a brief cold open where Frasier is introducing Bulldog Sports Show and suggests to people that the topic is going to be what's wrong with our Seattle Mariners. If you haven't had a chance to voice your opinion on that in the last 18 years, you'll want to today. So I don't think, and that was, I think, a similarly early season in the show. So I think that Frazier had a very good understanding of Seattle sports at the time, Frazier had a very good understanding of Seattle sports at the time, although it had a very poor understanding of the prominence of opera in the city's cultural

landscape. And I think it's important to say that like the view from that apartment does not exist. You'd have to be in the sky for it to be a thing. And I would also say to all the people who might end up writing for the Baseball Perspectives Annual that you should watch Frasier while you're doing your BP Annual comments. It will make them go faster. At least that has been my very particular experience. Yeah. We should just do a whole Frasier cheers episode at some point. I don't know how we could justify it, but we'll figure out a way. It's our podcast, Ben. That's how we would justify it. We'll be funny. We promise we'll be funny, but we'll figure out a way. It's our podcast, Ben. That's how we would justify it. We'll be funny.

We promise we'll be funny. How about that? Justification enough. I would like a week to prepare, though. So when you decide to do that, can you give me a lot of advance notice? Because I would like to. I want to have exhibits that we can share in the Facebook group, perhaps a multimedia display. Friend of the podcast, I think that is a safe to call him a friend

of the podcast craig goldstein when he found out that i was getting my job at fan graphs craig is a very kind friend and one of the things that he's very good at as a friend is that he is an excellent gift giver and he's going to be embarrassed i'm telling the story on the podcast i'm gonna do it anyway it doesn't matter craig just like buys his friends gifts sometimes when he sees things that remind him of those friends which is just like a lovely thing to do and one that I always mean to do. And I kind of forget. So Craig's a better person than I am. But when I was hired by Fangraphs and was going to be a full time baseball writing and editing sort, he found on Etsy or somewhere a it's a blueprint of Frazier's apartment.

And it's this lovely little print that is a blueprint of Frazier's apartment. And it's this lovely little print that is a blueprint of Frazier's apartment and it hangs above my desk and I'm looking at it right now. So yeah, Frazier is a sports show. Craig is a good friend and we should definitely do an all Frazier episode. That's my story. Agreed on all points. All right. So while we're remembering some guys and some 90s players, there's one I wanted to bring up. Mark Sweeney, probably not a player that many of you have thought of a whole lot lately, but I was thinking of him this week because he was a panel that Sweeney was on with Randy Jones, also from the Padres. And I was just taking a dive into Mark Sweeney's career, which didn't end all that long ago. He played for 14 years, so he last played in the majors in 2008. And yet his career looks like it comes from another era, another age. It's impossible to imagine a Mark Sweeney in today's baseball, which I think he said as much on that panel. He was joking about how he was always the

25th man on the roster and that the role that he had, which was really just dedicated pinch hitter, doesn't really exist anymore. But that job, I think Rob mentioned that he holds the all-time record for pinch hit RBIs, which is kind of a cool record. It's a nice thing to get a pinch hit RBI and he had more of them than anyone else. But what a weird career to last for 14 years in the majors to be on the whole a below average hitter. Although of course he was pinch hitting for a very high percentage of that time and that's a difficult job to do you're not facing guys for the third time through the order you're facing guys for the first time all the time and you're coming off the bench and even if that's your job that's a difficult thing to do but to never get more than

what was his max 291 plate appearances in a season, to last as long as he did, you could look at it and think, well, he was worth 1.7 war over that whole time. So did it make sense for teams to have Mark Sweeney on their roster all that time, accruing little value, at least according to our contemporary metrics? I don't know, but I kind of like that he pulled it off and that he lasted for that long. And I don't know whether we'll ever see his like again.

I bet fans of the 1999 Reds appreciated Mark Sweeney. He had a 163 WRC plus in that year. I imagine that fans of the 2005 Padres appreciated him. I'm going to say the following, which is that if you had asked me to name a baseball player, any baseball player, I think it would have taken literal months of me doing it in a row before I named Mark Sweeney. I think it would have taken, I might have accidentally named Mark Sweeney, assuming there was a human person named Mark Sweeney who had played professional baseball, but not actually having any memory of him because he played at exactly the right time, all for National League teams. Right.

When I, I don't remember ever seeing a single plate appearance. Do you remember a single Mark Sweeney plate appearance? I mean, I know I saw some because he did have some plate appearances in the 1998 World Series, which I watched. He made the last out of that series, in fact. But I couldn't really call to mind exactly what that looked like. No. In fact, even if I had told you to name someone named M. Sweeney who debuted in 1995, you probably would have said

Mike Sweeney long before you would have said Mark Sweeney. So he was sort of overshadowed in the M. Sweeney department during his career. So it's very random for me to bring up Mark Sweeney, except that his career might as well be from the 19th century or something in terms of

just how completely out of step it is with these times there's just no room for better or worse for a player like Mark Sweeney in modern baseball and I don't know whether we'll ever get back to the point I mean there are definitely times when fans wish that their team had a Mark Sweeney because their pitcher is forced to hit in some high leverage spot or a light hitting catcher or shortstop is left in because teams have such huge bullpens and there's no one on the bench. And you wish that you would have a Mark Sweeney in your pocket at that point, but no teams at this point deem a Mark Sweeney type valuable enough to carry on their roster rightly or wrongly. So I salute you, Mark Sweeney. I don't think that I could have told

you what his handedness was. No, certainly not. I mean, you're right. I've definitely watched him play baseball just based on the teams he was on and when they played and what they did, but I don't remember it. I don't remember. I was like left-handed, right-handed, who's to say? And imagine being Mark Sweeney because like your whole performance, like it's just inherently everything is small sample. So like 1997, he went from the Cardinals to the Padres.

With the Cardinals in 44 games, he batted 213. With the Cardinals in 44 games, he batted 213. With the Padres in 71 games, he batted 320. Then the next year, 234. The year after that, 355. Then 219. It was just like there's no telling. It's so random because you're getting like 100 to 200 plate appearances every year as a pinch hitter.

So sometimes you're just going to hit 215 and sometimes you're going to hit 350. And that's just the way it goes. I don't even know how you could have really discerned whether he was good or not just in that role. And of course, he was not someone with a ton of defensive value. I don't think he was a first baseman and a corner outfielder. And I don't know what he would have done in a full-time role. Maybe there was a reason he didn't end up in a full-time role, or maybe he got unfairly labeled just a dedicated pinch hitter, or maybe he couldn't have done anything else. I don't know. I'm just fascinated looking at this career and thinking about how it happened and how it never could happen today. Today, reading his Wikipedia page,

I learned that Mark Sweeney, in May of 2008, surrendered his jersey number, 22, to his rookie teammate, Clayton Kershaw. That's right. So, hey, that's a thing. Do we think, is Mark Sweeney, Mark Sweeney is still, it would appear, potentially, I don't know, a part of the Padres broadcast.

So I am sure recently heard Mark Sweeney, because as we know, I've been watching a lot of the Padres. I just keep watching those Padres, and it just keeps happening. I don't understand. It just keeps happening. So that's a thing that we've learned. He is the reason that Clayton Kershaw is number 22 yeah uh what a nice thing yeah he told that story on on the saber cast he said he just listened to it yet i'm going to it's in my queue yeah he gave up the number because it was clayton kershaw and even then you could tell that clayton kershaw was going to be clayton kershaw or

something like what he turned out to be and And Mark Sweeney had many uniform numbers, just a man of many numbers in his career because he played for seven teams and he was never in one place for very long. And so he didn't really have the seniority anywhere he went to command his one uniform number. So he just kept changing teams and changing uniform numbers and changing results.

And somehow he hung on for 14 years in the big leagues. I love it. I'm going to say two things. One of which is if Mark's when you listen to this podcast, hey, Mark, I'm really sorry because it makes it I've sounded like I don't care about your career or you as a person. And that's not true. I think it's very admirable that he gave up his number even to Clayton Kershaw of, you know, obviously a great

potential player at a moment when he didn't really have much of a like to stand on in terms of asserting a right to that number because we've all had the experience of going through airport security and getting you know a TSA official who feels like they want to enjoy the small amount of power that they have not all of them Many of you do a very good job. It's fine. But some of them are like very sassy. And you can tell it's because this is the power they have. And so they're going to wield it. And I would imagine that even as, you know,

kind of an underwhelming bounce around sort of veteran, if he had really pressed the point, they probably wouldn't have made him give up the number, right? Probably not. But he decided to give it up anyway. So I think he sounds like a first-rate guy. He also went to the University of Maine. I'm learning so much about Mark Sweeney.

Yeah, aren't we all? Nice. So one player that you all have heard of and thought about a lot lately that Mark Sweeney has probably been talking about too is Fernando Tatis Jr. And it just feels like this week has kind of been the week when everyone acknowledged how great Fernando Tatis Jr. is.

Not that we haven't seen flashes of that brilliance all season long, but suddenly everywhere I look, there is a new article about Fernando Tatis. I'm hearing about Fernando Tatis. We haven't really talked about all-star snubs and we don't care that much about all-star snubs, but if we were to care about someone who we would like to see on the all-star team, who at least as we record is not, it would be Fernando

Tatis because he is just the best of baseball from an entertainment perspective right now. And in your chat at Fangraphs earlier this week, someone said in all caps, because he is incredible, Fernando Tatis Jr. has gone from first to home on a single, scored from second on a ball that didn't leave the infield, hit a baseball 440 feet, and twice scored from third on a pop-up to the second baseman, all in the last 10 days. And that is what we get when we watch Fernando Tatis. He's awesome. He is awesome. And I think that one of the things that I enjoy the most about him, and I mentioned this in my answer, is that it is not just that he himself is fun, although he is tremendously fun.

If we lower the minimum played appearances to 200, he is right now at 15th, yeah, with some ties ahead of him, on the Nl position player leaderboard in terms of value But like right behind freddie freeman and trevor story and paul de young so he is just having a great year himself but he also Carries with him like the full promise of this young padres team, right? Like he is so fun and he does all this stuff that's athletic and he had a close play where he broke for home. I think it was against the Giants

and like scored with a funky swim move, diving, tumbling kind of deal. And a friend was describing this to me and I think they got it just right, which is that like he reminds you, oh yeah, like the Padres are good and fun now. I'm like, this is not a sad team. This is a great team.

And when I took them in our fun draft, part of why I did that was that I like this idea of San Diego being a baseball city because the Padres are their only major professional franchise. And so I I just I love it. I love that Tatis is so good. I love that he is so fun. And he has this vibe of like, you know, if Kurt Russell in Tombstone had been less grumpy when he said, and I'm, you know, and hell's coming with me,

it's like that. So it's a very different vibe than he actually exhibited in Tombstone. But if it were to be a vibe, that's the one that Fernando Tatis has. I'm really ready for the holidays, I think, is what I'm getting from that particular comparison. Might be a bit strained. I think it's apt.

Exactly what I would have said. It really reminds me of Kurt Russell in Tombstone. Just less grumpy. Just less grumpy. It was on the tip of everyone's tongue. Yeah. What was it? Ah, got it.

That guy. Yeah, there we go. Anyway, everyone go watch Fernando Tatis if you're not already. He's really fun. And hopefully we will get to appreciate him for the next two decades or so. So that'll be fun. So one other thing that I wanted to say before we bring in Bud Selig, we got a question from one of our Patreon supporters, Mitch, and I've been saving this to talk to you about.

He said, I just got an ad thrown at me for a Bryce Harper store on Amazon selling stuff he's endorsing, including pomade, because of course it includes pomade. And the ad text said, quote, run faster and hit harder with gear from an MLB legend. I think this is ripe for a classic Effectively Wild define a term project. Is Bryce Harper an MLB legend. I think this is ripe for a classic Effectively Wild define a term project. Is Bryce Harper an MLB legend? Can you be an MLB legend as an active player? How long do you have to play to be an MLB legend? How good do you have to be?

And I sent you the link to the Bryce Harper store and there's not a ton of inventory in the Bryce Harper store. It's like some hair stuff. It the Bryce Harper store. It's like some hair stuff. It's Rawlings equipment. It's Under Armour if you want to dress like Bryce Harper. There's some Phillies gear, a link to the Phillies fan shop.

There is a link from this page to the Celebrity Store, which is, I guess, all the other legends who get stores of their own at Amazon. And it's quite a collection of people from all walks of life. It's like Post Malone next to Martha Stewart next to Jessica Alba. I don't know exactly how they selected these people, but lots of famous people. Ryan Seacrest right next to Jordan Spieth, sure. And Bryce Harper is the only baseball player here. And frankly, I'm kind of happy there's any baseball player here because whenever you see a list of famous people or even famous athletes, it's pretty light on the baseball. But Bryce Harper, I guess, is our one shining hope to be a celebrity in Amazon's eyes. So Bryce Harper, MLB legend? Amazon's eyes. So Bryce Harper, MLB legend? I mean, it feels early for that. It does.

It just feels kind of early. I think that celebrity, sure. He's definitely a celebrity. I mean, he's been on magazine cover since he was 16. So he's definitely a celebrity of a kind. I think that of all the baseball players there are who are active players, he's probably, I would imagine his Q score, is that what they call it? I would imagine his Q score is probably maybe not the highest, but among the highest of active baseball players. Legend, like legend for, I say legend for what? And I don't say that to diminish his existing accomplishments. I mean, he has quite a, he has a resume that should it involve further milestones and accomplishments will, I think, start to look legendary at some point, right?

He's won an MVP. He's been a rookie of the year he signed a huge deal i will be in my 40s when he is done being a philly like he you know there are there are aspects of him and his mythology that are already sort of legendary but i think this is the the trick of trying to to talk about these things sort of mid mid story right he is he is quite unfinished whereas i would say that someone like like mike trout i think has a resume to be legendary but he is not a celebrity and so it kind of gets in the way there at at least not outside of baseball. So I guess then the question is,

does like legend to whom? Yeah, I still, the relative fame of Mike Trout and Bryce Harper still kind of confounds me because there is a perception that Harper is much more famous. And yet Trout has like two and a half times as many Twitter followers as Bryce

Harper, which I don't know if that perfectly correlates to fame, but it seems like there should be some connection there. And it's not like Mike Trout is just an amazing tweeter. I mean, I like the emojis and the airplanes and the weird exclamation point spacing and all of that, but I don't know that he is That much more famous on Twitter Because of his tweets so I don't know what that means they have exactly The same number of Instagram followers I don't know what that means either anyway these are all

Really imprecise measures Of how well known these people are But I think Harper Has more of a attention Grabbing personality Than Trout does and obviously Trout is a far more accomplished player. So even if they have some sort of parity when it comes to well-knownness, that would, I think, reflect the fact that Harper just sort of seizes the spotlight a little more.

And he was primed to be a legend by the Sports Illustrated cover and just what an incredible prospect he was and how long people were anticipating his arrival. So in that sense, I think he has the makings of a legend in that he's famous and he was sort of legendary before he even arrived, like larger than life type of figure. And I don't know that his actual play thus far has completely backed that up. And I wonder how many more years he could go of just kind of being a pretty good baseball player before that sort of started to fade if he doesn't have another MVP type season. Because I think we're all waiting for that to happen again, but it's not guaranteed to happen again. So I think you can be a legend while you're an active player.

Yes. But I do not think bryce harper is an mob legend no i don't i think is our only active legend active legend i'm gonna say this and then i'm gonna immediately regret it so i'm not gonna say it i was gonna ask if mike trout is our only active legend but but that's not right, probably. I mean, is Clayton Kershaw an active legend? I think he is. I think if you could retire today and you've already had a Hall of Fame career,

I think you're a legend. Yeah, that's a good cutoff. Yeah, so Kershaw could be done now and he would be a Hall of Famer. Trout technically would not be eligible yet, but depending on the circumstances, I'm sure he would be allowed to be a Hall of Famer. He certainly had a Hall of Fame's worth of value accrued in his career. And Bryce Harper is maybe halfway to that, maybe not quite halfway to that. So he's not a legend. I would say Trout's a legend. I would say Kershaw's a legend. I'd say Albert Pujols is a legend. Yes. I don't know. You could make a case for Verlander and Scherzer.

I mean, Sabathia, I don't know, Grinke. But now we're just getting into the Hall of Fame debate. Who's a Hall of Famer? Very recently retired. Ichiro is definitely a legend. Oh, yes. Certainly a legend yeah it helps if you have like some some aspect of your personality that goes beyond just being good at baseball so ichiro clearly a legend other people who were maybe worth as much war wise as ichiro not quite as legendary right so that's part of it yeah i i would be happier if bryce's season were

going better yeah i'm sure a lot of philly's fans would be too controversial take from meg would like it if baseball player did a better job at his job he's a legendary hair product spokesman and salesman, I would say, and pitchman. What sort of, this is a thing. I'm going to make a statement that's a little sassy, and then there's going to be at least one grumpy person in the comments on Facebook, and you're going to be the one who probably has to moderate them. So I apologize mostly to you, Ben. But what kind of goofy dude came up with the name blind barber for hair products? I tell you what yeah there's i don't know about that not a legend tell you that much no all right can you will you post

in the facebook group the still of are you looking at the are you do you sell the amazon open yes this is terrific radio but we'll post a picture in the Facebook group or I will if you forget. The picture of Bryce Harper with two bottles of this spray standing with his eyes closed in front of the mirror in the Blind Barber subsite of his celebrity store is my favorite photo ever. I might make it my Twitter header. Yeah, it's pretty great. It's like Megan Rapinoe celebrating a goal, except it's Bryce Harper holding up hair products. Very closely equivalent accomplishments. All right, let's take a quick break and then we will talk to an MLB legend. Can I say this? Bud Seelig, an MLB legend?

Can I say, is Bud Selig an MLB legend? Well, maybe we'll talk about that after the interview. So you'll hear from Bud, who of course was the Milwaukee Brewers owner beginning in 1970 and became the acting commissioner of baseball in 1992 and then served as the official commissioner from 1998 to January 2015. We'll talk for about half an hour and then you and I will be back to reflect on that conversation. Let's talk about things as they were, buddy. Before I got mixed up with her, buddy. with her. But laugh with me, buddy. Just with me, buddy. Let's don't let her get the best of me. But don't ever

let me start feeling lonely. I'm joined now by Bud Selig, Hall of Famer, Commissioner Emeritus, and author of the new memoir, For the Good of the Game, The Inside Story of the Surprising and Dramatic Transformation of Major League Baseball. Bud, congrats on the book, and thanks for coming on. Thank you, Ben. Pleasure to be with you.

I appreciate your talking to me today because as the book makes clear, you've already spent years of your life on the phone, talking to me today because as the book makes clear, you've already spent years of your life on the phone and you attribute your ability to build consensus to your willingness to talk to and especially listen to other owners. And as you note, it's often difficult to persuade people to do what's best for the game if it doesn't appear to be in their own short-term self-interest. So I wonder what you found to be the most effective method of persuasion or coercion. Did you have more success with the carrot or the stick? And how did you balance those two?

Well, I worked hard at it. Number one, this is what I was generally doing at 11 o'clock in the morning in my time. And so talking to you is what I did all those years. And look, you know, Ben, the one thing I saw before I took over, and I was fortunate enough to serve under three commissioners, is that oftentimes owners felt sort of left out. They didn't feel that their own wishes, their own franchise, everybody's franchise has different characteristics, as you know, and different likes. And so I made it my business to spend endless hours talking to everybody.

Conversations were always good, but, you know, sometimes they have different opinions, and clearly they all had different opinions from each other. I tried to explain right from the start, Ben, what I was doing and why I thought it was in their best interest. And so when it came to a meeting, I knew where everybody stood after a while, on every subject. And it was, I guess you asked the question of what method did I use to do it. It was always friendly.

Even I talk a lot about my relationship with George Steinbrenner in the book, and we never agreed on anything, but always got along very well. And in the end, he was really one of my most loyal people. So I do think communication, ability to talk to people and to understand. I had run a franchise and owned and won for 23 years before. So, you know, I understood their problems. And that was helpful, by the way, given the past history of people who felt that it wasn't. So you asked whether it was a carrot or a stick. I don't know. Just, I guess, a combination of all the above, as we used to still in effect. The ownership old guard was still in place. Walter O'Malley, Gussie Bush, Phil Wrigley, and the rest. And as you write, this group of old owners was using very primitive business practices.

No one could believe that you actually balanced the Brewers' budget and knew when the team broke even. And they were also extremely stubborn about giving any ground to the Players Association. And that intractability led to decades of defeats, and it also fueled the bad blood that contributed to the Players Association. And that intractability led to decades of defeats, and it also fueled the bad blood that contributed to the 1994 strike. So knowing what you know about how the 70s and 80s labor battles played out, if you could go back and talk to those old owners and your younger self, what would you tell them? And could you persuade them to do things any differently? Oh, I don't know. You know what happened at the first meeting as I write in the book, and I liked a lot of those people. But

in fact, there was a new generation of owners coming on. There were people like my mentor, John Fetzer, who was not young, but was a visionary. And I'd travel with him to and from almost every meeting just to hear what he said, why, how, what. And you know, Ben, there was a stubbornness. Even Peter Seitz, the arbitrator in the McNally-Messersmith case, gave us a chance before he made a ruling, told us he was going to make a ruling, and it wasn't good. But we went to court. We lost again. And there's no question, and I say this in the book, and we made a lot of mistakes in the 70s and the 60s, and maybe even in the

early 80s. So whatever blame goes to the union, and we talk about other subjects on that score, we needed, I don't think we understood at the time, Ben, how much this hurt us. It was only later in 2003, 4, 5, 6, 7, when we were setting attendance records, revenues going through the roof. What did we have, Ben? We had labor peace. And it wasn't just labor peace. It was deals that we made in 2002 and 2006 and 2011 that finally dealt with our economic problems.

Look, we had an economic system, Ben, that was not only archaic. It hadn't been changed since the 20s and 30s. It was stunning. hadn't been changed since the 20s and 30s. It was stunning when you looked at it in 1992, and I tried to change one line in the opening chapter that Phil Rogers, who wrote the book with me, as you know, made me take it. It said, I inherited a blank mess. You know what the blank was.

And it was. It was a mess everywhere you turned. was. And it was. It was a mess everywhere you turn. No labor peace, no revenue sharing, no reason for disparity, nothing. And in fact, I used to say, this economic system came out of Ebbets Field and the Polo Grounds. Those, as you know, were the two New York ballparks that have since long, long since been torn down. But that's the last time we change the system. And in the book, you repeatedly write about Pete Rozelle and about the NFL's innovations in marketing and promoting their game, which left MLB playing catch up for many years. And I wonder what you think was baseball's biggest mistake or lost opportunity during any era

when it came to modernizing itself and putting its product in front of more fans. Well, I am critical. Obviously, I think Pete Rozelle did a brilliant job for the NFL. I don't think there's any question about it. I also tell the story of having lunch with Bowie and Pete Rozelle. Bowie was getting killed. I like Bowie killing a lot, as I wrote in the book, as you know. And Pete Rozelle was getting patted on the back at exactly the same time for the exact same thing. And that's when Bowie got off his famous line to me, which I have since used everywhere. And it's true. Baseball is held to a higher standard, tougher standard. And there's no question about it. Things go on. I saw it during the steroid issue. I saw it in

other things. But look, it's a compliment. It's it during the steroid issue. I saw it in other things. But look, it's a compliment. It's tough when you're the commissioner. Otherwise, it's so bad. But when you're a commissioner, it's tough. But look, until we started with the wild card and interleague play and a whole series of things, baseball hadn't made any change. You remember, Ben, in 93, when I went to the wild card, I got killed. I was ruining the game, and this was terrible, and what's this guy from Milwaukee doing? And, oh, man, it was tough. Because baseball is a social institution, Ben, and it resists change. And so I think you'd agree with me years later, the wildcard worked out pretty darn well. But boy, it was a lot of opposition, not by the clubs, by the media and

a lot of other people. You write briefly in the book about collusion, and you say that you think the arbitrators who found in favor of the union in those cases drew inferences that were not supported by the evidence and that you found their rulings frustrating. And you note that you used to joke that if the owners were colluding, you were the worst colluders in the history of mankind, because look at what was happening with salaries. But by the way, that's true. Yeah. Yes, but of course salaries did dip briefly during that time and free agent movement slowed severely. So I wonder where, if anywhere, you think that you and or other owners crossed the line at that time. Well, I know that I did because Milwaukee wasn't signing free agents at that time. And I know I testified in that. Look, Tom Roberts and George Nikola found us guilty, and I say that.

But I do want to say the following to you. I said to you before that we had made a lot of deals in 80, 81, 85 that didn't deal with our problems. Owners were scared. If you had owned a team then, Ben, you'd be scared. Disparity had come in. There was a whole series of things going on. I remember Edward Bennett Williams, the famed trialer who owned

the Baltimore Orioles, just called me almost every day. Buddy, what are we going to do? This is a disaster, he said. And yet we kept making deals to make deals, but they didn't deal with our problems. But we did in 02, we did in 06, we did in 2011, and then we did again.

And that's why the sport really turned around. But as far as collusion goes, look, found us guilty, and I try to say that very clearly. Do I agree even in a retrospect? No. I'm sure the union will not agree with that, and I understand that. But do I know of any specific collusion? No, I really don't. The fact that we were concerned about salaries, they had risen to the roof the idea that owners were ever losing money, many teams were in dire financial straits. On the other hand, though, you note that when you became commissioner, you told the owners to judge you on the value of their franchises and that the growth of franchise values was what they wanted. And you write about some of the lucrative sales that occurred, even at times when you say the sport was in bad shape. And of course, the brewers appreciated tremendously during the time that you and your family owned

them. So how do you square the assertion that a lot of owners were hemorrhaging money with what a great investment on the whole baseball teams have been over the past few decades? Well, except you didn't know it was going to be a great investment. In 2000, Ben, in 2001, we lost a fortune as an industry, and our bankers were nervous. I was nervous. There were teams really struggling to make payroll. We went through a lot of ups and downs. Now, look, the union never believed it. We submitted financial statements, audited financial statements, audited.

I want to underscore that again by outside things. And, you know, they would refuse to believe it and testify in Congress. It was nonsense. We had some real problems. Now, once we got going with BAM, revenues increased, labor peace set in, you know, I'm very proud of what happened. And I had told them the day I became commissioner, judge me on asset value because it's a composite of everything. But that assumes, one, that you want to sell your team, and number two, that you're willing to lose

a lot of money in between. And most people are not willing to do that. So, no, I think those, look, I'm very proud of what happened to asset values, and I really am. And I don't even know why I told them to judge me on that, but it turned out okay, didn't it? But the fact of the matter is we had really significant economic problems. And, you know, we had the unfortunate strike of 94. Stan Kasten, who then was the president of the Braves, as you remember, used to say, was on a 12-person committee that I had, labor. They were great. Met, spent a lot of time. And he'd always say to me, Commissioner, Commissioner, we're not asking for half as much as the other two sports have already.

He was right. And so, well, he can quarrel about a lot of things and did. The eight work stoppages really hurt us. There's no question. Hurt the players, hurt the owners, most importantly, hurt the game. Fortunately, that's long ago now, and hopefully in the future they'll avoid that. Yes. So I have a couple questions about PEDs.

We're talking at a time when PED testing and penalties are strict and yet home run rates are at an all-time high, far higher than they were during the so-called steroid era. And it appears that this current spike in home runs is largely or entirely attributable to changes in the baseball itself. And some of those changes have been detected via tests and technology that, to my knowledge, were never applied to the balls of 20 years ago. So how, if at all, does this current offensive environment affect your opinion of how much steroids actually contributed to the scoring and home run rates that we saw in the 90s and early 2000s? Well, you know, Ben, all I can tell you about the whole steroid thing, and, you know, I spent a lot of time on it.

I think there's an enormous amount of mythology about we waited too long and we did that. mythology about we waited too long and we did that. And, by the way, one of the things we did in the interim, Sandy Alderson was the head of our baseball operation, a man who I have enormous respect for. And we checked that. He went to Haiti. We went everywhere.

A lot of people thought it was the bat or the ball expansion. We went to why all of a sudden are we having all these things? And I'm sure that knowing Rob Manfred as well as I do, that they're going through all the same things now. I don't know about the ball today. All I know is that steroid usage, and it was sad. I'm proud of where we are today. Toughest testing program, not only in American sports, a water, the World Anti-Doping Association will tell you,

but as good a program as there is in America. And so we've really tightened things up. It took a long time. We went to a lot of hell, a lot of heartache, a lot of things. But there's no question that, in my mind, that the use of steroids, not only was it illegal, Ben, but it affected the game in one way or another. If you're taking steroids and I'm not, Ben, that's not what was meant to be. And in the book, you make the case that no one at the time really appreciated the extent of the use of steroids and that even if you had been more aware of what was happening, you were hamstrung by the union's refusal to agree to testing. And it's certainly true that your hands were tied in that respect at the major league level. But as you note, you did have the ability to unilaterally implement random testing in the

minor leagues. And as you point out, Faye Vincent made it clear that steroid use was banned by MLB as well as the law in 1991. And you sent a memo yourself to teams about steroid use in 1997. So I was wondering, as I read, why you didn't decide to put testing in place in the minors until 2001. Well, I did it in 2000 for the 2001 season. Because, Ben, I'll tell you why. The day the Andrew story broke, Steve Wilstein in Pittsburgh, the AP writer, broke it about Mark McGuire. And I didn't even know what Angel was. I'd never heard of it. I tell the story how I went to my pharmacy the next day and my drugist, who was never a quiet guy anyway, said,

That's over there. You could buy it. Over the counter. The best we could get out of the union was to go to Harvard and study the effects of Andro for a year or two. That's how difficult it was. And I, listen, one thing I'll give the Player Association credit, especially Don, Claire, and Gene Orza, particularly Orza, they were public about this.

There are people who say you were slow to react, or I didn't realize it was a subject of collective bargaining. Well, it is a subject of collective bargaining, Ben. We couldn't do any more than we did. And so the more we studied, we hired experts. We have Dr. Gary Green still there from UCLA, who's magnificent. And he really began to teach us. And in 2000, remember, 2000, I banned it in the minor leagues. So we're now coming up on 20 years. And so I think there's a lot of misunderstanding by people who really didn't understand the process. Last PED-related question. Why do you think Barry Bonds wasn't signed after his All-Star season in 2007?

You know, I don't know the answer to that. It certainly didn't come from anybody saying, don't sign him. I really don't know. How old was Barry at that time? I think he was 42, but coming off a great season. That gives you an answer to a 42. Look, everybody, Barry had been through a lot, a lot of public stuff, a lot of stuff in court. And I don't know the answer to that.

I mean, obviously his age, the controversy. Look, he was a great player. No doubt about that. So you write about the advent of MLB Advanced Media, which has had a huge impact on the sport. And as you acknowledge in the book, it's somewhat ironic that MLB became this high-tech powerhouse on your watch, given your own low-tech lifestyle. By the way, Ben, that's still true, but go ahead. Yes. And when you look at the rise of BAM or the escalation in broadcast contracts that played large parts in the increase in revenues during your tenure. Do you think of those as trends that you helped foster or more as market forces that really benefited teams in the game,

but which were somewhat beyond your control or anyone's control? Well, I do take, I think I will, and baseball will take credit for some. Look, the rise of BAM was amazing. When I think of its infancy and what started and what it grew to, nobody could have believed it. But, yes, I do believe. I said earlier in this conversation that we talked about what baseball hadn't done. Well, that changed. And after 1992, actually, a lot of things changed. And so, yes, I do give us credit for setting the trends and being an active force in that. No question. Camden Yards has been, and you write about the sociological and economic benefits that can come

from the presence of a team and a new stadium. But as I'm sure you're aware, there are also studies that have suggested that publicly funded parks can in many cases be economic net negatives for taxpayers. And I wonder how you'd respond to that argument. Well, you know, that's one of my favorite subjects. As you know, I teach at three universities now, and that's something I spend a lot of time on. I've seen the studies. Look, Washington just published what I thought was tremendous. The whole area around the Nationals ballpark was a disaster. And this is an article in the Washington Post.

I'm sure you've seen it. And now that area is really booming, and they give the ballpark credit for it. And I say to you, I could take you from city to city, Ben, and I could show you where ballparks, even right here in Milwaukee around Miller Park, it is amazing the things that have happened. And I've done a lot of economic studies i come from a family of economists so we have a study that showed the brewers bring in 330 million dollars a year nobody ever talks about that bet but i'm going to say this to you i can tell you

that and and they're all private public partnershipsublic partnerships now. Club's spent a lot of money on state and should. But as a public expenditure, and I'm a taxpayer too, I can show you that maybe the best expenditure any municipality ever makes. And I don't agree with some of the study. And I think we've had enough time now to prove how good they are. Just a couple more for you here. And this is something that you do discuss in the book. It's time now to prove how good they are. proud you were when you were able to bring the brewers to the city. And having been on that side of bringing a team to a city and then having to be on the other side of, you know, talking about

contraction, about relocating the expos, about sometimes perhaps, you know, pitting cities against each other in order to get a ballpark. Was that a conflict for you? Was there turmoil there, having experienced both sides? Yeah, there was. Well, there always was. Look, I'm proud of this fact. Number one, the only team we moved early on were the Washington Senators to Dallas. And we tried for days to try to find an owner. It was finally Tom Yawkey and John Fetzer who talked me into it. Bowie couldn't find an owner in Washington. Thought we had one. I went up to my room that night.

I was physically sick to my stomach. The only move that came after that was Montreal. And look, I am telling you, Ben, I kept Montreal there two or three years longer than I should. I begged people to buy them. They had no owner, local owner. They had no ballpark. It was very, very frustrating. Look, I love the Bronfman's, Charles Bronfman owned that team.

He was one of the great owners in baseball history. And then he sold the club in 91. Others came after that and tried and failed. So by the time the Exp Expos were moved they weren't drawing and it was a really tough situation I know there's some people in Montreal who don't understand that but the fact that imagine when we moved into Washington we had no choice we had no owner and we had no stadium so I there is that conflict, by the way. So lastly, giving teams hope and faith and promoting competitive balance was one of your success in that area and in other areas

in that we now seem to have a situation where because of revenue sharing, because of payments from the BAM sale and broadcast contracts and the like, some teams seem to feel a little less pressure to spend and put a competitive product on the field at all times because they're doing so well before the season even starts. And that seems to have led to maybe a contraction in the free agent market over the last couple off seasons, which has ramped up tensions again, seemingly, between the league and the players. So I wonder whether you think we have a new hope and faith problem today? No, I don't think so, Ben. And it's a subject that we spend a lot of time on. Look, if I were to say to you, because I know these people and I know how badly they all

want to win. And I look at what's going on. Now we have the wildcard races are going to be remarkable. We've had some division. But look, if you and I have a bad team today, and I go back to the Branch Rickey era, okay, Branch Rickey used to say it takes three to five years. We have a bad team. We have a bad farm system. The only way you can do it is to retool. I want to point out to you, Ben, that happened in Chicago with the Cubs and Theo. I remember going down there and getting killed defending

Theo and Tom Ricketts. I was in Houston the next year getting killed. They had lost 100 plus games. They both won world championships. I'll repeat, there is no other practical way to build a team. Mr. Rickey was right then and he would be right today. And do you think that the labor piece that has been in place can be sustained? I hope so. I hope so. I have a lot of faith in Rob Manfred, and I know Tony Clark will feel the same way. I hope they both will get together and work things out. It was the things that we did in 2002, 2006, and 2011. In 2006 and 2011, we did it early. It was done peacefully early.

Gave Mike Wiener a lot of credit in 2011, as tough as he was, he understood. And everybody gained as a result of it. Most important, it was for the good of the game. Well, I don't know if it's possible to be a popular commissioner of Major League Baseball, and not everyone will agree

with everything you write in the book. But one thing that comes through that I think is inarguable is that you do care deeply about the game and you've left a lasting mark on it. So anyone who wants to read more about how you view your legacy

and your recollections can do so in For the Good of the Game, the inside story of the Game, the inside story of the surprising and dramatic transformation of Major League Baseball, which will be available on July 9th. Bud, thank you for talking to me today and best of luck with the book. Thanks a lot, Ben. It's a pleasure to talk to you and I look forward to seeing you soon. The same sweet things he told me And in your eyes I see That same sweet glow And did you say

You'd never leave me lonely Well that's what he said. That's what he said. Okay, so that was Bud Selig. And, you know, I had half an hour to talk to Bud. I probably could have asked many more questions. I could have pressed him on more things. I could have followed up.

But there was only so much time. I tried to get in what I could. Some of his answers you can kind of anticipate based on things he said before, things he's written in the book. There were things that are in the book that I didn't explicitly ask him about, but it's really kind of hard to reckon, I think, with Bud Selig's legacy because there's just a lot of legacy there. He's been in baseball for 50 years, and I would say he's been one of the most influential figures, perhaps the most influential figure over that time. So there's so much to say about what he accomplished. And I meant it at the end of the interview when I said that I don't know if there could potentially be such a thing as a popular commissioner of baseball, because I just don't know that you could name one. He's the

ninth. And I think that maybe he was the best commissioner of baseball, but it's sort of a low bar. And I think that's because there's a misconception about what the commissioner is and has been. And I think there's this belief that the commissioner is and has been. And I think there's this belief that the commissioner is just this impartial, sort of noble force who is upholding all that is good and right about baseball. And commissioners have tried to encourage that perception, but it's not really accurate. The commissioner is appointed by the owners and really works for the owners to some extent, you know, greater or lesser extents, depending on the commissioner.

Selig, of course, was himself an owner while he was commissioner. So that just sort of completely removed the fiction that this was some independent authority. So you can and probably should be somewhat cynical about the role of the commissioner in baseball. I just don't know that anyone has really done the job without leaving some sort of stain on their own popular perception. Maybe, I don't know, Bart Giamatti, just because he didn't do the job long enough to hurt his reputation. He just passed away five months into the job, I think. And so we remember some things fondly about him. But if he had lasted longer, who knows? He might have been the one to preside over the first cancellation of a World Series. So how do you think of Bud

Selig? He's just such an institution. And for people our age, I think we grew up with Bud Seelig just as a part of baseball from time immemorial. And so it's hard to separate the modern history of the game from him. So my understanding of him in sort of prior phases of engaging with baseball, so before I was writing about it or even really thinking about it analytically was within the context first of the strike in 94 and then in reference to the steroid era. And I remember being, and I don't say this like I was such a smart kid or anything like that, but I just remember being pretty incredulous when you know we were watching these crazy home run chases and the home run numbers were so high and then you know it became obvious that we were living in the steroid era and there was this sort of denial on the league's part that they had really been

able to anticipate what was motivating that and causing that spike in offense. And I just remember not buying it. And so I think that you're right. There are rarely commissioners of – and I don't think this is unique to baseball. I think this is true of all professional sports. The commissioner often tries very hard to be a well-liked figure, but no commissioners really are, or at least very few. I think you're right that baseball hasn't seen many. And I think that because they operate in this space where they are engaged in a very particular kind of advocacy on behalf of the sport, but on behalf of particular

parties to the sport, that they always kind of sound a little bit like they're talking out of both sides of their mouth. And I don't think that think that i mean having listened to your interview with him i i i don't doubt that the answers he gave were sincere and that he believed you know that he believes that there was not collusion in the 90s that his understanding of the financial situation that baseball found itself in before bam came along was one that was especially dire. I'm sure that that is a sincerely held belief on his part, but it's always interesting to listen to these guys because I think it's really hard to train yourself out of listening to those answers and engaging with them kind of at face value without that fan or analyst part of your brain kicking in

thinking like well who who is he speaking on behalf of and like right now he's just speaking on behalf of himself and trying to understand and grapple with his own legacy but it is hard to to disengage the part of your brain that's like well this guy is an advocate for a particular perspective within baseball so that isn't a critique of his answers in your interview or your interview. But I found myself struck over and over again by, you know, he is, he still talks about ownership within baseball and uses we, right? He, and it is clear that he has a very particular understanding of his place within the game, which is an accurate one, but is clear that he has a very particular understanding of his place within the game which is an accurate one but is one that is decidedly on a side and i i was kind of i was

struck by that throughout throughout the course of his answers yeah he sure liked calling you ben yes yes he did you would have thought we were old friends from listening to that but we have never spoken before but yeah i mean know, he's almost 85 years old. And when you write a memoir, I mean, you're presenting yourself as you want people to view you. Right. And this is what you want your legacy to be. And so, of course, whether he's doing it sincerely and subconsciously putting a thumb on the scale here or there, and subconsciously putting a thumb on the scale here or there.

I mean, he's presenting events differently from how other people, perhaps neutral parties or parties on the other side of these issues, would present them. And you don't know whether he is actively spinning, whether he believes that all of this is accurate. It's hard to say, but I think it's valuable to talk to people, even if you're not getting or you don't feel like you're always getting the unvarnished truth, just to know how they view themselves or how they want to be viewed. So for instance, when he talks about

the public funding of ballparks, and when I asked him about that, he mentioned the $330 million figure that Miller Park brings in, $330 million a year. That, I think, is a very high figure, and it's somewhat hard to swallow. And I asked Neil DeMoss about this, who has written the book and many other articles about public funding of ballparks, and he linked me to the study that this seems to be from, which is called The Economic Impact of the Milwaukee Brewers. And it was published in January 2005, prepared for the Milwaukee Brewers Baseball Club. Wouldn't you know, they commissioned this report, which doesn't mean it's bogus on its own, but it kind of raises your radar and your antennas. And I emailed Victor Matheson, the professor who also often writes about the subject. And I asked him what he thought about that figure. And he said, totally bogus. If the brewers were to up and move,

there would barely be a ripple in the Wisconsin economy. And everyone currently spending money at Miller Park would instead spend it elsewhere in the Milwaukee economy. And I know that is often the perception of these studies of ballpark impact that seem to be motivated by someone wanting a ballpark. So I don't know, maybe Bud Selig read that report and thought this is completely accurate. Maybe he just really wanted a ballpark because he is proud of bringing the Brewers to Milwaukee and he wanted them to stay there. That's a big part of his legacy and it's important to him. And so if information came along that supported that, then he was going to embrace it. So it's hard to know, but I think you have to be sort of skeptical. And I found the book pretty engaging.

It's called The Inside Story of the Surprising and Dramatic Transformation of Major League Baseball. That's the subtitle. And I mean, he's the ultimate insider. He was on the inside of everything for decades and, you know, was one of the few people, one of the only people who remembers some of the events and was alive during and present for some of the events that he talks about in the book. And it's an insider's story. Is it actually the inside story? I don't know. You know, you read something like Lords of the Realm or The Game, which came out, I think, in 2015 and also is subtitled Inside the Secret World of Major League Baseball's Power Brokers. And that will give you a different view of things and often a view that is not quite so complimentary to Bud Selig. So it's hard to know without having been there, but you read those other accounts and it kind of balances out this account, which can't help be colored by the fact that it is written by the person who is starring in this story. Yeah, it would have been very surprising if he had come out and said, you know, I'm looking back and I was just the worst.

Right. One thing that I was struck by just because of, and I, you know, it's always interesting to talk to and listen to figureheads from prior eras of baseball. I mean, I say prior, you know, it wasn't like it was oh so long ago that Selig was commissioner, but you know, he, you can tell listening to that interview is very proud of the sort of recent rounds of CBA negotiations that the league went through, which I think to folks who are sort of more sympathetic to the split of revenue that players might be getting and how that is perhaps out of balance with what they might like. I think would probably look back on them not quite as fondly, but he also asserts in your

interview this bit about how he told owners that he wanted them to judge him on asset appreciation, basically, right, on the value of their franchises increasing. And, you know, he talks a bit about the limits of that franchises increasing and you know he talks a bit about the the limits of that because it assumes that you're going to sell right the franchise but within within our current labor environment and the current economic environment that baseball finds itself in i think it's a i i was i had not heard him specifically say that during his commissionership. And so I was struck by, I was like, well, yeah, man, that's part of what we think is the problem.

Yeah. Right. He personally became a hundreds millionaire. Right. As a result of his own ownership. sort of without artifice say, you know, it wasn't that I said that they'd each get a shot at a World Series or, you know, the parades and rings that come with it, but that the values of their franchises would increase. I think we have a tendency to, while recognizing that, you know, the free agent situation in baseball has evolved over time and has at times in the past been more restrictive. I think that there is sort of a, you know, a sepia toned understanding of the motivations of prior generations of baseball players and owners, right? That it was this

beautiful game that everyone just wanted to win. And, you know, at times has just been very nakedly about economic advancement. And so to hear it put in so stark a term was striking. Yeah, right. And he writes a lot in the book. And he said in the interview that it's hard to persuade people to go against their short-term self-interest to do something that's for the good of the game. And he was often pushing for revenue sharing. And of course, he had a difficult time getting the big market owners to consent to that. And I think he was probably right that that was needed or was beneficial in some ways. On the other hand, he was also the owner of the Brewers and he benefited directly from revenue sharing. So maybe he did think it was for the good of the game, but it was

also for the good of the Brewers and for Bud Selig. So it's hard to untangle these things. I mean, there are people who will tell you that Bud Selig destroyed baseball and that he was the worst, and they're still mad about the expansion of the playoff field and the wildcard and interleague play and all of that. And I think it's probably time to get over that. I think, A, I like those things. I think they have been good for baseball. I think it is nice that we have more than four playoff teams now that we have 30 teams overall. And he presided over an era of immense prosperity in the sport. And that's why I asked him about how much credit do you give yourself for that, essentially, because it's hard to know the same way that you can't really credit a president for how the U.S. economy is doing. Do you credit the commissioner for how the baseball economy is doing? Or do you just say, well, he was there at this time when the Internet became ripe for something like BAM and he didn't oppose it, he didn't stand in the way of it, but it wasn't his brainchild either. So it's hard to know how much to say that is a direct result of Bud Selig. We don't know what a replacement level commissioner would have done over that same span. And on the one hand, you've got the 94 strike and you've got the cancellation of the World Series, but you also have really unprecedented labor peace in the years since then, at least in

the free agency era. And that has been a positive for the sport. So there are just so many things. If you're a commissioner and a really important figure in the game for as long as he was, there are just going to be a whole lot of positives and a whole lot of negatives. And it's hard to tally them up and know exactly what they come out to. I, I do think that it is a, it is a role where you receive praise you don't deserve and blame you

don't deserve. And I guess that what you're hoping for is that those two things sort of come in equal measure. So that when it's all said and done, you're looked back on, maybe not fondly, but at least in a way that doesn't carry with it scandal or see the end of the sport. I mean, there are certainly commissioners both within baseball and within other sports that have engaged in far worse than anything that Bud Selig oversaw. But yeah, it's a complicated legacy. I mean, I think that it was interesting to listen to him kind of, you could tell that this was, you know, he has written this whole book, so he has had ample opportunity both over the course of his life and in the course of writing it, I'm sure,

to sort of arrive at what he has as an understanding of his own legacy but to hear him articulating it you know i don't know it's a it's a hard thing i wonder how we'll all do when we look back on the legacy we've left it hopefully or most likely won't have a significant impact on the course of the game as a commissioner's would, but I'm sure we'll each play our own small part. Yeah. And I think he's been conscious of his legacy for some time. He's definitely someone who studies baseball history and cares about baseball history and his place in it. And I think, you know, people have accused him of like the Mitchell report was less about cleaning up baseball than it was about restoring his own reputation. I don't know whether that's the case or not, but I think he makes some valid points

in the book about how it was tough to realize exactly the extent of the PD use in baseball and tough to do anything about it because it was a collectively bargained issue. But I think it's also fair to say that he was slow to respond to that threat to the game's integrity or perceived integrity. And he does talk in the book about how he's a Hall of Famer. Obviously, that meant a lot to him to get in on the first time he was eligible. And he acknowledges that people say that if other players who used steroids, you know, other products of the so-called steroid era are not in the hall or kept out of the hall as a result of that, then he too should be kept out of the hall because he presided over that era. thinks it's unfair to equate players who actually used to him who sort of was there and perhaps didn't do enough to to root out that problem but wasn't creating it himself that's his perspective at least and i know there are a lot of writers who are sort of disillusioned by the presence of

but see like in the hall of fame that once he got in, it was kind of like, okay, well, what grounds do we have to keep out anyone from that era? Because he was there and maybe didn't do enough to combat it. And so we might as well just let everyone in and, you know, mention it on their plaque if you want to or whatever, but not bar them from the Hall. And that's mostly what I would like to see. So we didn't get into that too much in the interview just because he wrote about it. He's talked about it elsewhere. But for anyone who was wondering what he thinks of that argument, he does address it in the book. I think my favorite parts of the book

were about some of the lesser known aspects of his history, like his upbringing. And he is a first generation American. He got his love known aspects of his history, like his upbringing. And he is a first generation American. He got his love of baseball from his mother, who was an immigrant from the Ukraine. And that story of his childhood and how he fell in love with baseball and the role that his mother played in it, I thought that was pretty touching. And he recounts what an impression it made on him to see Jackie Robinson play in his rookie season at Wrigley Field. He talks about the response to 9-11 and how baseball came back after that and what that meant to the country. And of course, that makes him look pretty good too. But I think there's some truth in that,

and it's pretty affecting to read about it again and hear what he was thinking and how the other commissioners of other leagues were talking about how to handle that and how to return and what was appropriate. So I like that. If you've read books like Lords of the Realm and the game, some of the earlier labor stuff will be pretty familiar to you and maybe some of the more recent events are familiar to you from having lived through them. But I think it's an engaging story and it's nice to know how he wants us to think of these things, even if we do not feel obligated in all cases to think of those things in the same way. Yeah. I think that it's always instructive to listen and take seriously

the perspective that someone wants us to have of them or the perception that someone wants us to have of them. Even if we at times vary in our understanding of those events or kind of raise an eyebrow at some of the way that they describe them, just because they're interested parties doesn't mean that we don't learn something from how they relay the events that they've lived through and their understanding of their own decision making and the justifications they have for that decision making. So yeah, it's an interesting thing to get to hear, even if we might say, well, I don't know, it might not have been a collectively bargain policy, but I don't know how much you minded all those home runs.

Yep, yep. And he addresses that head on in the book and he says, no, he was not looking away purposely. He was not secretly happy about the offense. No, he was concerned about all of this and he sent a memo and so on and so forth. And we can't get in his head. We can only know what he says was in his head. So that's that. And I'm glad I got an opportunity to talk to him regardless. So that will do it for this week. And we hope you all have a wonderful weekend. And I will talk to you next week. Sounds good. All right.

Thanks for listening. We recorded this episode a little bit in advance because of the holiday. So apologies for anything we didn't get to today. If you're picking up Bud Selig's book, why not pick up mine?

It is called The MVP Machine, How Baseball's New Nonconformists Are Using Data to Build Better Players. If you like it, we'd really appreciate it. If you'd leave a positive review

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if you're a supporter. Thanks to Dylan Higgins for his editing assistance this week. So please enjoy the last bit of baseball before the all-star break and we will be back to talk to you early next week What have you said? It's all coming back to you now It's all coming back to you now We'll see you next time.