MLB Owners Officially Ratify Two-Year Contract Extension For Bud Selig

MLB team owners have officially ratified and completed the two-year contract extension for Commissioner Bud Selig by a 30-0 vote. Though announced on Jan. 12, the extension as a legal matter was procedurally delayed during owners' meetings in Arizona. Because the deal was not originally on the meeting agenda, it had to be added by unanimous consent. Padres Chair John Moores, livid over league-mandated delays on his sale of the team to team Vice Chair & CEO Jeff Moorad, refused to allow that to happen. Team owners then decided to conduct the formal vote by return ballot over a 10-day period, which satisfied league notice requirements. The extension will keep Selig in office through Dec. 31, 2014, when he will be 80 (Eric Fisher, SportsBusiness Journal).

MISSING THE PLATE: Baseball writer Murray Chass wrote, "How did Commissioner Bud Selig allow the Boston Red Sox and the Chicago Cubs to create the baseball farce of the year?" Selig allowed the Cubs’ pursuit of then-Red Sox GM Theo Epstein "to overshadow" the World Series. He then "allowed the clubs to extend the deadline for completing an agreement on compensation for Epstein, then abandoned the deadline altogether." By "allowing Epstein to go to the Cubs with the compensation issue unsettled, he put Epstein in position to negotiate his own compensation." Selig also "allowed the Cubs and the Red Sox to violate his rule on minority interviewing in their hiring of new executives" (MURRAYCHASS.com, 1/22).