Selig Non-Committal On Attending Bonds’ Record Home Run Game

Selig Says He Has Not Decided Whether To Attend Record-Setting Game

MLB Commissioner Bud Selig in an 80-minute interview with the N.Y. TIMES’ Bill Pennington “neither praised [Giants LF Barry] Bonds nor expressed sympathy for Bonds’s current plight, which includes being vigorously booed in ballparks he visits around the country.” Selig, on whether he will attend the game Bonds breaks Hank Aaron’s career home run record: “I know people want to know what I’m going to do, but I have not decided. I’ll decide at some point when we get closer to that time. I want to do what I think is in the best interest of the sport.” Selig added that he would “make his decision alone, and he seemed to indicate that he might be awaiting additional developments from [MLB’s] internal steroid inquiry or from an active federal investigation.” Former Commissioner Fay Vincent predicted Selig would not attend the game, saying, “He’ll congratulate Bonds from afar and give it appropriate but subdued recognition. I think Bud has handled it perfectly so far” (N.Y. TIMES, 5/12).

SHOULD SELIG BE PRESENT? In N.Y., George Vecsey noted the sitting commissioners “were not on the premises the last two times the career [home run] record was broken,” but unless Bonds is “unexpectedly implicated in matters relating to pharmaceutical usage or tax evasion or perjury, baseball must honor him when he passes Aaron” (N.Y. TIMES, 5/13). Detroit Free Press columnist Mitch Albom said Selig’s “absence will be criticized far more than his presence would, and it will be seen as a racial slight” (“The Sports Reporters,” ESPN, 5/13). In Atlanta, Jeff Schultz writes Selig “should be made to watch Bonds’ every swing,” as should anybody who “ever allowed this era’s chemically enhanced assault on history to take place,” including all owners, TV execs and union reps (ATLANTA CONSTITUTION, 5/14). In N.Y., Phil Mushnick noted the Mets “were among the first to jack up ticket prices when Bonds and the Giants came to town,” and the Wilpon family, which owns the Mets, “should be there to applaud Bonds.” Selig “should be right there with them” (N.Y. POST, 5/13). But in L.A., Bill Dwyre wrote under the header, “Message To Selig On Bonds’ 756th: Don’t Go There.” If Selig attends the game, he “could end up looking like a fraud and phony down the road” if U.S. Sen. George Mitchell’s steroid investigation implicates Bonds (L.A. TIMES, 5/13).

Nets Keeping Close Eye On Giants Games As Bonds Nears Home Run Mark

INTEREST RATE ON BONDS: In West Palm Beach, Charles Elmore reported Fox is looking to add a Giants game to its schedule in anticipation of Bonds breaking the mark, and ESPN, which will air Giants-Mets on May 29, “is keeping a watchful eye on yet-unscheduled June dates.” ESPN also is “trying to secure rights to ‘cut in’ to carry Bonds in games shown on regional networks.” ESPN Senior VP/News Vince Doria said, “Whether someone is rooting for it or against it, attention must be paid to it” (PALM BEACH POST, 5/13).

MITCHELL INVESTIGATION: In his N.Y. TIMES interview, Selig claimed that he was “not apprehensive” about what Mitchell’s investigation may turn up. Selig: “We have nothing to hide -– whatever [Mitchell] finds, he finds. I hear people say, ‘Bud must be worried.’ If I was worried, why would I launch the Mitchell investigation?” Selig denied that MLB “turned a blind eye” to steroids in the late ‘90s. He said, “It’s a myth I hear repeated on TV all the time, that it was good for business. It wasn’t by itself. Attendance from 1998 to 1999, one year after the [Mark McGwire-Sammy Sosa home run chase], our attendance actually went down. They like to say we turned our backs on it. Turned our backs on what?” He added of drug testing, “Everybody knows the union fought it. To put it on ownership or the commissioner’s office is revisionist history” (N.Y. TIMES, 5/12).

BUYER’S REMORSE? In N.Y., Murray Chass reported word around MLB is that Selig “was the only baseball official who wanted an investigation; others in his office thought it was a poor idea,” but he “now regrets having gone forward with it” (N.Y. TIMES, 5/12). In Chicago, Greg Couch wrote Mitchell “has no place pushing for” players’ medical records. Couch: “This isn’t an issue of national security, and a former senator ought to know that he can’t be snooping into people’s personal lives. ... You just have to have the feeling that when he’s done, he’ll produce 15,000 pages saying that [Rafael] Palmeiro failed a drug test, which we already know” (CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, 5/13).