Death of a Pastime, Birth of a Business

Among devoted sports fans, the mere mention of Major League Baseball commissioner Bud Selig is bound to result in a heated discussion about the current state of the game.Andrew Zimbalist, a professor at Smith College and author of several books on sports economics, provides valuable ammunition to armchair experts with his detailed yet largely dispassionate “In the Best Interests of Baseball?: The Revolutionary Reign of Bud Selig” (Wiley, 256 pages, $24.95), a study of Mr. Selig and his eight predecessors. Curiously, Mr. Zimbalist, who was a consultant for the MLB Players Association during the bitter 1994-95 baseball strike, is himself tentative in judging the most powerful man in the game.Although describing Mr. Selig’s tenure as “revolutionary” strikes me as hyperbolic – integration of the game in the late 1940s was a more profound change than further expansion of the two leagues or the introduction of the “wild card” in postseason play – Mr. Zimbalist’s book is noteworthy for its accessible economic history of baseball.In the author’s view, the two most influential commissioners were the first, Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, and Mr. Selig, with the men in between relatively inconsequential because of either weak leadership or activist tactics that led to unfruitful confrontations. For example, it was the Brooklyn Dodgers’s Branch Rickey who forced baseball to accept Jackie Robinson against the defiant opposition of his fellow franchise owners. Happy Chandler, the commissioner at the time, was indecisive.Landis, who was appointed commissioner after the “Black Sox” betting scandal of 1919, is usually portrayed as a strict and heroic moralist who “saved baseball” in the earlier part of the 20th century. Mr. Zimbalist has a more jaundiced opinion of Landis, calling him “capricious and quixotic” and exposing him as hypocritical on many fronts. Landis, for example, was publicly a stern advocate for Prohibition, and insisted – for the sake of baseball’s integrity and its influence on the youth – that both players and owners adhere to squeaky-clean behavior. Yet he was, at least in private, given to profanity and self-aggrandizement, and he ordered cases of bourbon for his own use.Landis, despite his image of “supreme” impartiality, almost always sided with the owners, not only on the question of integration but also as a firm defender of baseball’s unique antitrust exemption. In 1915, when the fledgling Federal League attempted to break the sport’s monopoly, Landis, then a circuit court judge, said in a ruling,”As a result of thirty years of observation, I am shocked because you call playing baseball labor.”The issue of “labor” blew up in the 1970s with the advent of free agency and the visionary maneuvering of union leader Marvin Miller, the man most responsible for the enormous salaries players receive today. Mr. Miller consistently outwitted the game’s owners and commissioners, saying at one point, “[I]f Bowie Kuhn had never existed, we would have had to invent him.”It is with this necessary background that Mr. Zimbalist plunges into an analysis of Mr. Selig’s influence on the game. Mr. Selig became “acting commissioner” in 1992, even though he was the majority owner of the Milwaukee Brewers, a conflict of interest that was unprecedented and is correctly criticized by the author. (In fact, Mr. Selig didn’t sell his interest in the team until 2005, even after he officially became MLB’s commissioner.)Mr. Zimbalist is undecided about his main subject throughout the book, parceling out both harsh criticism and fairly lavish praise. On the one hand, Mr. Selig comes off as a smooth politician, not unlike President Clinton, with his ability to ameliorate the squabbles among the game’s owners and manipulate the press. When Mr. Zimbalist interviewed the commissioner for his book, Mr. Zimbalist was successfully schmoozed and forced to concentrate on eliciting definitive answers to his questions. He writes of a 2005 meeting, “Again, [Mr. Selig] was taking control of the conversation and flattering me at the same time.”Yet Mr. Zimbalist, while explaining that Mr. Selig’s love and thorough knowledge of the game have been instrumental to his success, is not above taking cheap shots at the commissioner. Mr. Selig, who grew up as a fan of the old Milwaukee Braves and once “cried” when Hank Aaron hit a home run in a crucial game, organized his family life around baseball. Mr. Zimbalist apparently disapproves, saying, “There were no family outings for a picnic, a hike, a museum visit, a play, and no games of Monopoly, Yahtzee, or Concentration. There were only visits to the ballpark.”Maybe Mr. Selig was single-minded, but I’d venture that millions of children wouldn’t object as strenuously as Mr. Zimbalist to the Selig family lifestyle.Despite the various shortcomings of Mr.Selig,the author generally gives the controversial commissioner high grades, saying that he has successfully “shepherded” the game from an antiquated pastime to a thriving business. After the disastrous strike in 1994, which caused Mr. Selig to cancel the World Series for the first time in 90 years, he subsequently rebounded and increasingly exerted his power. By 1998, Mr. Zimbalist writes, “The industry had revenue sharing, a luxury tax, interleague play, three divisions per league, and a wild card – and it had all come under Selig’s leadership.”I’d say those changes were “evolutionary” rather than “revolutionary,” but Mr. Zimbalist is certainly correct that Mr. Selig has presided over a more harmonious environment than his predecessors.There are some errors in “In the Best Interests of Baseball?” – the author says, for example, that in 2003 both the Boston Red Sox and Chicago Cubs were “one pitch” away from facing each other in the World Series, which is simply false. Mr. Zimbalist’s fretting that the percentage of black MLB players has decreased to 10% in 2004 from 27% in 1975 doesn’t take into account the explosive surge of Hispanic players’ role in that reduction. And while almost everyone can agree with Mr. Zimbalist’s sensible suggestion that World Series games begin at 6 p.m. EST rather than after 8 p.m. to garner more enthusiasm among the youth for the sport, his scoffing at Mr. Selig’s rule that the winning league in the All-Star game obtains home field advantage for the World Series is open to debate.Of course, such questions are why “In the Best Interests of Baseball?” is a worthwhile read. Mr. Zimbalist’s approach may be grounded in economics rather than another paean to the majesty of baseball, and he doesn’t reveal favoritism for any particular team. But it’s obvious that he is a serious fan who’d be an excellent companion at the ballpark.Mr. Smith last wrote for these pages about the baby boomers.

Death of a Pastime, Birth of a Business

Death of a Pastime, Birth of a Business

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