When someone in the audience in Madison asked Bud Selig for his most memorable moment as commissioner, he started off with the requisite “There were so many of them” before landing on Game 3 of the 2001 World Series at Yankee Stadium, when the crowd began a thunderous USA chant after then-President George W. Bush threw out the first pitch.
That year also brought what Selig remembers as one of his more trying times.
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President Bush gives a thumbs-up before throwing out the first pitch in 2001.
Photo by: GETTY IMAGES
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On the morning that the terrorist attacks brought down both World Trade Center towers, baseball owners were holding their quarterly meeting in Milwaukee.
“We wake up Tuesday morning and, oh my God,” Selig said, recounting that day for the audience. “I go down to the Pfister [Hotel]. Owners are there. People don’t know what to do. The owners of the Seattle club bought a car and drove home. They just wanted to go home.”
With air travel suspended, games had to be canceled. The question for Selig would be when to resume.
“So now, I debate all week with myself,” Selig said. “I did talk to [NFL Commissioner] Paul Tagliabue a lot. Did talk to [Big Ten Commissioner] Jim Delany. Did talk to [Wisconsin Athletic Director] Pat Richter. What do we do? I talked to the White House. Talked to everybody. Finally I’m at Friday. We decide we’ll come back Monday. It’ll be six days. Am I nervous about it? You bet. I’m generally nervous, but really nervous about this. Monday, I come home. They’re all night games. Nervous. Had a little dinner and then go upstairs. Turn on all the games. Flipping from channel to channel.
“I see the St. Louis-Milwaukee game in the pregame, and there’s the great [announcer] Jack Buck, and he’s reading a poem off a piece of cardboard. And he says, ‘Should we be here tonight. Yes, we should.’ And with that, I cried. I don’t mind telling you. I watch all the games, including the Mets game [won on a dramatic Mike Piazza home run]. And the Mets game was storybook. I mean, it was storybook.
“So what I say to you, as a social institution — and my students hear it all the time — in our own little way, we helped.”
— Bill King
