The Lineup Card

8. He thought it was the best professional sport, but tried very hard to make it more like the others. He thought the game was wonderful, but publicly ran it down at every opportunity. He loved the fans, but instructed them not to care unless their team had a chance for the playoffs.

Baseball can be enjoyed just because it's baseball. Bud Selig never understood that. He loved the game, but he was a businessman first, second, and third. For better and for worse.

9. Always playing catch up......never at the forefront. Very little, if any, leadership exhibited to enhance the game.

"SevIn." Also, lots of labor peace for 20 years, which has been awesome.

I feel like if you look at MLB relative to other professional sports leagues over the course of Bud's time as commissioner his reign starts to look pretty disastrous. Obviously Michael Jordan isn't Bud's fault, but at this point the NBA and the NFL are clearly more relevant to young fans in a way that was not true at all when Bud took over. He had the advantage of working in a time when there was an enormous expansion of media, ways to reach fans and revenues-- and he didn't mess it up, and everyone made giant piles of money, but he clearly did not handle it nearly as well as the competition.

Epitaph: "Hey, at least we're not hockey."

Old school is correct. He was always playing catchup. However, I can't see any senario where young people today really care more about baseball than they do about football and baseball. If Bonds, Sosa and McGwire couldn't do it no one can. The young don't care about steroids just ask the NFL

"Must have been great at working behind the scenes, because what we saw publicly wasn't much."

His unwillingness to enforce some basic rules -- the actual strike zone, time taken between pitches -- has led to the biggest problem facing baseball: There is too much time between the actual activities on the field. The younger people who are expected to support the game down the road aren't willing to invest 3+ hours a night all season long.

Colluded against players in 1980s, out of greed. Took control of MLB by force in 1992, to ensure opportunity to double down on greed and steal back what was lost when collusion backfired. Played dumb and coy, as though did not want job he very clearly wanted. Extorted communities for billions of dollars. Called to personally intimidate public critics. Created Wild Card system, lessening sport's exceptionalism and dampening competitive integrity. Responsible for cancelation of 1994 World Series. Expanded league twice, by four teams, in cash grabs to appease owners. Anti-marketed the game. Actions ensured loss of Montreal Expos. Oversaw steroid proliferation in baseball, ignored it, demonized users after problem became public.

Won by losing, over and over again. Oversaw massive growth of industry, and tremendous profit growth, through no fault of his own. Made back-room deals with thugs, drug pushers in order to disgrace Hall of Fame player. Added second Wild Card, making farce of playoff race, in fact watering down meaning of word itself. Threw schedule grossly out of balance, in cash grab, making game harder to market nationally, messing with competitive landscape. Made huge rule changes in order to address previously-obvious problems, only after they bit him in backside. Botched installation of replay, creating creaky system and implementing it years too late.

Did some good with revenue-sharing. By most accounts, a nice guy.

Nice one, Mauricio Rubio.

Epitaph: Show me the money!

Guys, guys, guys, there is no "commissioner of baseball." There is a lead negotiator for the owners. If that's your leader, so be it, but it's not mine. Because I'm a labor guy (and for less advantaged portions of the labor movement) I'm happy that he was decent and effective in bringing management together on good enough deals for the workers. On everything else I shrug with Harry Pavlidis.

I'm going to be the dumb guy and ask about "Sevin." My guess is it's a movie or TV reference of some sort? Google mostly directs me toward a pesticide.

Russell Carleton sounds like a condescending rep for Selig or someone who delights in taking jabs at traditionalists.

I seem to recall some previous articles and/or research on this very same site demonstrating that interleague play and wild cards did not in fact result in the financial windfalls that Selig claimed they did, in what was a sadly typical PR spin emblematic of all his pet projects.

Furthermore, I don't know any traditionalist who was upset by the new stadium movement as a whole. Virtually everyone is glad to be rid of those horrible multi-use facilities--many with Astroturf--that were built in the '60s and '70s in many cities.

People may rightfully object to how they were financed in Selig's high-stakes game of extortion with the various municipalities, but it's flat out deceptive to say traditionalists are against their mere existence. Traditionalists are the ones who most valued baseball-only parks in the first place, remember?

Craig FTW.

Selig and previous commissioners lost the youth by making it unreasonable (impossible?!!) for kids to watch the championship series of the sport. While I'm a fanatic, none of my three kids developed significant interest because of the above.