Slate has an article that tries to reverse the public perception of Selig: “Bud Selig - A Baseball Hero”.
And Selig has taken a step toward enhanced competition by overseeing the creation of an effective, if imperfect, system for transferring money from rich teams to poor ones. This year, for example, the Yankees were forced to pay more than $60 million dollars to other teams as part of a revenue-sharing agreement and an additional $25 million tax to the sport based on their huge payroll. The system has flaws—some small-market teams have an incentive to stay bad so they can continue to rake in George Steinbrenner’s dollars—but it’s a big step toward greater parity among teams. In addition, Selig has written rules limiting the amount of debt, compared with cash flow, that a team can carry. This is a huge hindrance to the Yankees, the sport’s behemoth, who carry a heap of fat, long-term contracts. It’s probably the reason the team has scrub infielder Tony Womack in their outfield instead of the studly Carlos Beltran, and it helps to explain why it looks like another team might win the Yanks’ division next fall, for the first time in eight years.
I would say this just reflects the fact that the obsession with baseball not having parity really seemed to be borne out of the Yankees’ late-90s success. And it’s not only true that the revenue-sharing system encourages small-market teams to stay bad - I feel there should be a salary floor, actually - it encourages them to stay “small market”. So a team like Philly, playing in one of the larger metropolitan areas, for a while was “small market”. And heck, the Twins may revel in their small-market status, but they have the richest owner in baseball. If he’s a tightwad (as was Oakland’s former owner, actually), should the rest of baseball be punished for that?
Here’s a summary of the other points made on Selig in the article:
Bad
- strike of ‘94
- replacement players in ‘95
- conflict of interest, given his interest in the Brewers
- threatening contraction
- cancelling All-Star game
Good
- steroids policy
- revenue-sharing system
- interleague
- wild card
- making Henry, Werner, and Lucchino owners of the Sox
- moving of the Expos to DC
- centralisation of MLB.com
I wouldn’t consider the move of the Expos to DC great without first noting that MLB completely mismanaged that franchise. Which illustrates a problem with some of the things in the “good” column: the article tries to paint Selig as the hard-hitting type (“Selig may look like a chump, but he always swings hard. And now he’s finally hitting some balls out of the park.”), but really how much did he do when his hand wasn’t forced? Was it really necessary to leave the Expos in limbo for 3 years? Wasn’t the steroids policy a response to the threat of Congressional action? (Hmmm… who was commish in those years when McGwire was setting records and noone seemed to say anything?)
And while Henry/Werner/Lucky worked out all right for the Sox in the end, doing it by a shady backroom manoeuvre (as the article calls it) is hardly something to be proud of.
To be fair, I think the Wild Card is a great idea. Not just because of the ultimate results, though of course that helps, but because it keeps a lot of teams in the hunt, which is fun. I also like it because it allows teams to stumble slightly during the first half, and use the trade deadline to assess the team and address needs: the Sox did this in ‘04 with the Nomar trade, and Billy Beane seemingly reworks the Oakland As every year… Also, the Wild Card necessitated the creation of the AL Central, the very existence of which has been as much a force for parity as revenue sharing.
Interleague? Meh. No strong opinions on it either way.