Captain Conflict

It's high time Bud Selig steps down as commissioner

There comes a time in every man's life when he grows tired of Bud Selig. For me, that time is now. I'm tired of guessing whether he means the things he says. I'm tired of wondering if he says the things he means. I'm tired of debating whether, just this once, I should give ol' Bud the benefit of the doubt.

I first spoke to Selig at length in the early stages of what has now become his decade-long stint as "acting" commissioner. He was good at acting even then. We talked about something Selig had to talk about a lot in those days: the fact that he'd become baseball's boss while he still owned the Milwaukee Brewers. I said it was unseemly that the Brewers had been awarded a future All-Star Game for their proposed new stadium, that it seemed strange that owners had given him money to help finance that stadium, that it was plum unfair that he, alone among owners, had jurisdiction to discipline players on rival teams. "Ah, Kostya," Selig said collegially. "I won't let any of that get in the way of my integrity."

"When you're the Cat in the Hat," I said, "it's not enough to be impartial, you have to seem impartial, too. You can't give people reason to question your motives."

In the years since, and especially in the past two months, there has been plenty to question. So much so that even though Selig is armed with a brand new contract extension -- the owners recently decided to keep him through 2006, at least -- the time has come for him to step down.

Baseball's big issues of the day, namely the battle over contraction and the uncertainty surrounding several teams' ownership situations, are about two clowns short of turning into a circus. Baseball needs an unbiased hand to lead it through the muck. What could hurt the sport more than to have a commissioner with special interests designing the competitive field? Imagine an umpire trotting onto the diamond in a Brewers cap and you get the idea.

When I've talked to Selig over the years, it has usually been about important, human stuff -- the banning of Marge Schott for her racial comments, Pete Rose's place in the game -- so I've gotten a sense of him. He's smart. He loves baseball. He's thoughtful and he works hard. You like those qualities in a commissioner. But he's also deeply self-interested. Removing himself as Brewers owner, but anointing his daughter, Wendy, as the successor, did nothing to alter the central fallacy of his commissionership.

Now, beyond that, come smoking guns. First, of course, is the $3 million loan he accepted, on behalf of the Brewers, from Twins owner Carl Pohlad in 1995. That loan violates baseball rules, might be illegal (as fraud or collusion) and has led to such statements as this from Rep. Bill Luther, D-Minn.: "Baseball may be out of control, which could easily explain why Mr. Selig conceived the contraction scheme in the first place."

Almost as smelly is last week's revelation that Selig also allowed a multimillion dollar loan from Pohlad to Rockies owner Jerry McMorris in 2000. You wonder what other money trails await discovery. Who else is in cahoots?

Then there's baseball's alleged role in the sale of the Red Sox to Marlins owner John Henry. Baseball's general counsel, Robert Dupuy, swears the league didn't orchestrate the sale. Yet Massachusetts attorney general Thomas Reilly, who investigated the sale says, bluntly: "Major League Baseball was calling the shots here."

Whom do you believe, folks?

Remember that Henry and Selig have been chummy for years and not long ago commiserated together behind closed doors about the financial state of the Marlins and the game. Henry is likely to back Selig's revenue-sharing plans, and even if such sharing is a good idea -- I think it is -- you can't have the commissioner allegedly ushering like-minded people into ownership positions.

Selig's vagueness in his congressional testimony about baseball's finances in December rankled many people -- John Conyers of the House Judiciary Committee was particularly irked -- but it was no surprise. Today's U.S. leader learns to equivocate before he learns to add. (The CEO's golden rule: A little wiggle-room goes a long way.)

More galling is Selig's insistence that an elimination of the Twins, as has been suggested as a part of a contraction plan, wouldn't benefit the Brewers. I don't know about you, but I learned how to read road maps in third grade. My map says that the Twins play about a 75-minute highway drive from the heart of Wisconsin -- or what could be genuine Brewers country if most of the fans there weren't rooting for Minnesota's team.

The best thing for baseball would be to bring in, ASAP, a leader who's bright and passionate, but also strong willed and fair, and not ensnared in a web of supposed special interests the way Selig is. Maybe the league could get Ira Glasser, the former head of the American Civil Liberties Union and a baseball man to the core. Maybe baseball should consider former Massachusetts governor William Weld for the job. Maybe the owners should consider someone else altogether. The only imperative is that they get someone -- not because we're tired of Bud, but because his commissionership is so clearly dangerous to the sport.

Sports Illustrated senior writer Kostya Kennedy takes sides every Tuesday at CNNSI.com. The thoughts expressed here are solely those of the writer.

 

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