As MLB Commissioner Bud Selig enters the "final months of his often criticized" tenure, his sport is, in "most ways that matter, more prosperous than ever," according to a profile by Ben Reiter of SI. The last decade has "produced all 10 of the best-attended seasons ever, driven, in part, by what has appeared to be the advent of competitive balance." When Selig took over for late Commissioner Fay Vincent in '92, the game's "financial health was imperiled both by uneasy relations between the clubs and their players, and between the clubs themselves." The league now "is about to complete its 20th straight season of labor peace." The topic of regrets is "not one to which Selig gives much thought." Selig: "I don't really have many of those. ... You have to learn in this kind of life that no matter what you do, somebody's going to be mad. And you just gotta accept that." Reiter writes the league's "current successful model is Selig's legacy -- and that despite his image, he has done more to shape his sport than perhaps any other baseball commissioner." When Selig "assumed office -- and that he was permitted to rule from Milwaukee and not New York City was one sign of how deep his power ran from the start -- he immediately made it clear that he would be a new type of commissioner." He "dispensed with the charade, still maintained in some other sports, that a commissioner is a neutral arbitrator, standing both between and above a league's owners and its players." MLBPA Exec Dir Tony Clark: "I don't know if there's any gray area as far as that representation. As much as anything, with those brighter lines, the dialogue it has led to at the bargaining table is reflective of that understanding."
I DID IT MY WAY: Reiter notes while being "publicly excoriated, Selig worked the phones, convincing the league's owners -- rich and proud men whose agendas often seemed diametrically opposed -- to see things his way, no matter how long it took." Meanwhile, Selig said of his early years as commissioner, "The '90s were particularly tough, because I was doing things that weren't popular. I knew they had to be done. But it's interesting how life works out, because years later everyone accepts them." White Sox Chair Jerry Reinsdorf has said that Selig "might have made a fine Senate majority leader, in another life." Selig "won virtually every fight in which he'd engaged in baseball, while often making it seem as if he wasn't fighting at all." Commissioner-elect Rob Manfred, who Selig supported, "eventually won the vote" to succeed him, by the "usual Seligian consensus of 30-0." Reinsdorf, who supported Red Sox Chair Tom Werner for the post, "fell into line, with no hard feelings." Reinsdorf said of Selig's tenure, "He wasn't always right, but he was right enough" (SI, 10/20 issue).
