Bud Selig's legacy

[Frobby]

It will be really interesting to see how history judges Bud Selig. Here's a comment by Tom Boswell in the Washington Post today:

Commissioner Bud Selig, 77, was as responsible as anybody for the bad old days. Yet he has done what few people in any industry can ever accomplish. He has survived, adapted and, finally, undone most of his sport's and his own biggest blunders. He has helped build a functioning owner-player consensus by serving as an institutional memory that vividly recalls the full price of bitter failed labor negotiations.

In the end, he has left an excellent legacy that, frankly, I never would have imagined possible just a few years ago when his name was still connected to the worst of baseball buzzwords from "collusion" in the '80s to "The Strike" in the '90s to the steroid era scandals of the '00s.

This is his day. Selig, who always claims an historian's sensibility and who, indisputably, adores the game up to the legal limit, has outlasted and outwrestled a tormented baseball period that started almost half his life ago.

Those who don't learn from history are, as everyone knows, condemned to repeat it. Bud Selig learned. He didn't repeat, but rather, rewrote his own, and his game's history.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/nationals/baseballs-new-collective-bargaining-agreement-is-a-remarkable-moment/2011/11/22/gIQAurMTmN_story.html

Well, I don't know. I don't know if I can ever forgive Selig for being asleep at the switch during the steroids era and allowing a group of pumped-up players to render baseball's record book almost meaningless. And I don't know if I can really praise a system that redistributes the profits of the Yankees and a few other teams just enough to make it in the rest of baseball's financial interests to go along, but which still stacks the deck so ridiculously in their favor. And I swear, baseball is going to pay a long-term price for scheduling the playoffs and World Series in such a way that the younger generation of fans never sees many of the game's most dramatic moments because they occur 2-3 hours after they've gone to bed. How many kids actually saw the last few innings of Game 6?

Selig is leaving the game in good financial shape for the time being, and I certainly appreciate that there hasn't been a work stoppage since 1995. But I still see some pretty big problems that will inhibit the game's popularity in the long term.

[NewMarketSean]

I agree, I think Selig has done more bad than good.

But baseball is finally getting past the steroid era and doing well and the Yankees are not guaranteed World Series titles every year. People are going to look at that and forget a lot of the bad.

[BaltimoreTerp]

All I can say is that he needs to find a new place to buy his glasses.

I have the same problem with shortsightedness as he apparently does. If I take my glasses off things start getting blurry outside of four feet or so. The glasses I wear now I bought from Doctor's Vision Works two years ago. The frames haven't been of a very good quality, but the lenses have done yeoman's work especially considering how often I drop them. I can see as far as I need to see, crystal clear. His don't seem to have any affect whatsoever.

[TonySoprano]

And I swear, baseball is going to pay a long-term price for scheduling the playoffs and World Series in such a way that the younger generation of fans never sees many of the game's most dramatic moments because they occur 2-3 hours after they've gone to bed. How many kids actually saw the last few innings of Game 6?

Are you suggesting going back to daytime world series games while people are at work and kids are smuggling transistor radios to school to listen to the games?

[BaltimoreTerp]

Are you suggesting going back to daytime world series games while people are at work and kids are smuggling transistor radios to school to listen to the games?

Does it have to be either-or? I think the idea is more to start games at 7-7:30 so that they end before eleven, and thus more of the games can be reasonably seen by many more kids. Then you can do weekend games (or at least Saturday) in the afternoon.

The scheduling is getting better now that games are starting closer to eight than to nine, but like a lot of things in baseball there is room for improvement.

[Birds of B'more]

Eh.....that would be like the Orioles making the playoffs in 2012, PA selling the team, and then debating whether or not he was a good owner. The full body of work just wasn't good.

[TonySoprano]

Does it have to be either-or? I think the idea is more to start games at 7-7:30 so that they end before eleven, and thus more of the games can be reasonably seen by many more kids. Then you can do weekend games (or at least Saturday) in the afternoon.

The scheduling is getting better now that games are starting closer to eight than to nine, but like a lot of things in baseball there is room for improvement.

That works out...for the east coast. For Roy Firestone and other left coasters that's 4 - 4:30 pm. A lot of kids are going to be watching the games then while one/both of their parents are still at work?

[waroriole]

That works out...for the east coast. For Roy Firestone and other left coasters that's 4 - 4:30 pm. A lot of kids are going to be watching the games then while one/both of their parents are still at work?

There are a lot more people on the east coast. Why prevent them from seeing the end of the game? At least the west coast folks could see the end and middle of the games.

[TonySoprano]

There are a lot more people on the east coast. Why prevent them from seeing the end of the game? At least the west coast folks could see the end and middle of the games.

How about the other three time zones? L.A., Chicago, Dallas, and S.F. are the 2nd, 3rd, 5th, and 6th largest TV markets; Houston is 10th, Detroit 11th, Phoenix 12th (reference)..... shall I go on?

The kids in the central, mountain, and pacific time zones aren't prevented from seeing the end of a game that starts at 8:30 EST. Let's not get all ESPN here and assume that Boston(7th) and NY (1st) in the east are what baseball should revolve around.

[waroriole]

How about the other three time zones? L.A., Chicago, Dallas, and S.F. are the 2nd, 3rd, 5th, and 6th largest TV markets; Houston is 10th, Detroit 11th, Phoenix 12th (reference)..... shall I go on?

The kids in the central, mountain, and pacific time zones aren't prevented from seeing the end of a game that starts at 8:30 EST. Let's not get all ESPN here and assume that Boston(7th) and NY (1st) in the east are what baseball should revolve around.

If a game starts at 7-7:30, the only time zone really affected is the west.

[TonySoprano]

If a game starts at 7-7:30, the only time zone really affected is the west.

What if the game is on the west coast? i thought the argument is moving the game back an hour. How doesn't that affect the mountain and west time zones, and the central as well during their network news hour?

[waroriole]

What if the game is on the west coast? i thought the argument is moving the game back an hour. How doesn't that affect the mountain and west time zones, and the central as well during their network news hour?

Does anyone really watch the network news? I don't think that's something that MLB needs to really consider.

There is no ideal situation. The country covers four time zones (not counting AK and HI), so someone is going to get a raw deal. It just doesn't make sense to give the raw deal to the most populous area of the country.

[Birds of B'more]

Last time I checked, kids are not the target demographic of those who buy the ad time during WS games.

$

[TonySoprano]

Does anyone really watch the network news? I don't think that's something that MLB needs to really consider.

There is no ideal situation. The country covers four time zones (not counting AK and HI), so someone is going to get a raw deal. It just doesn't make sense to give the raw deal to the most populous area of the country.

I guess you skipped past my list of largest TV markets. Those of you attending a WS game in California, Texas be damned, you skip work and go to the ballpark early, we have NY to think about.

Last time I checked' date=' kids are not the target demographic of those who buy the ad time during WS games.

$[/quote']Common sense. You must not have an east coast bias.

[waroriole]

Last time I checked' date=' kids are not the target demographic of those who buy the ad time during WS games.

$[/quote']

Yeah, and that's a big part of the problem with Selig. He has focused only on the present. If they don't start changing things, the next generation is not going to care about baseball. Selig's inability to think beyond current profit is one of the worst things about his reign.