Baseball, nor I, will miss Selig as commissioner

	Let the countdown begin: Bud Selig will step down as baseball commish at the end of '09. Al Bello/Getty Images

Bud Selig announced that he'll be stepping down as the commissioner of Major League Baseball at the end of 2009. Bud, if you're reading this, I urge you not to let the door hit you on the way out.

Selig has been the single worst commissioner in baseball history. And that's a list that includes Kenesaw Mountain Landis, who seemed to enjoy baseball almost as much as he enjoyed banning baseball players.

There have been great changes implemented under Selig. This year's World Baseball Classic was pretty cool. Interleague play, when divisional, creates new rivalries. I've even grown to like the Wild Card. But letting those three things make up for the damage he's done would be like saying John Tesh's music is OK because he was great on Entertainment Tonight.

May I remind you that Selig's regime saw a World Series canceled. Earthquakes, World Wars, even Tesh's musical career couldn't cancel a World Series. But Selig was so deep in the owner's pockets, there was no shot at finishing the '94 season. Why? Because Selig was an owner at the time. How the hell did an owner become interim commissioner? Why ... the other owners voted.

A few years after becoming commissioner, Selig finally handed over control of his Milwaukee Brewers to an impartial owner: his daughter, Wendy Selig-Prieb. That's right -- he was not only appointed in charge by his colleagues, but he left a family member to run his original business. I liked this system better the first time when it was called Tammany Hall.

And if you think the baseball gods were OK with this all, take a look at the Brewers' post-season record since this all happened. Oh, right, they haven't been in the post-season since then. But the Twins -- now that's a team that needs to be contracted.

Which brings me to contraction -- another one of Selig's gems. MLB did over expand, and I actually do support the idea of contraction. Except Selig went about it the wrong way. Aside from announcing the idea like it was a post-season award, Selig got the teams wrong.