Should Bud Selig be a Hall of Famer?

[Chris Counts]

With all this talk about who shouldn't be in Cooperstown because he did steroids or produced numbers that suggested he did steroids, I wonder what Bud Selig's ultimate legacy will be. The one man who could have put a stop to the steroid scandal years ago — and ignored it — is on track to be a Hall of Famer. I say there's no way he should be inducted because the scandal happened on his watch, and half of America knew it existed before he publicly admitted there was a problem. It's only a matter of time before he's on the ballot, and considering the ineptitude of the voters and the cronyism that clearly exists among those who run baseball, he'll probably get in. What do you think? Should Bud have a plaque in Cooperstown?

And his legacy? He made millions for himself and other owners, but the game's credibility took a huge hit, in large part because he ignored a very serious problem for years. With the money he makes ($20 million a year plus), you would think he gets paid to tackle tough issues. While I disagree with much of what Kenesaw Landis did — from banning players for life over salary disputes to being an outright racist — he restored credibility to the game when it needed it by taking action and banning crooked players. The guy had balls.

Imagine if Bud had banned a couple players 20 years ago, before Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and others made a mockery over baseball statistics. We likely wouldn't be having this debate. And nobody would question Bud's Cooperstown credentials ...

[chaddurbin]

you judge a commissioner but the growth of the sport under his reign, both in popularity and revenue. selig has done a good job in both. mlb was really the first major sport to capitalize on the burgeoning online media biz way back and has made alot of money for every teams through revenue sharing. not counting the regional networks, mlb is about to negotiate a huge national tv deal that would make every team's value go up. all of that trickles down to the escalating players' salaries. what other sports do you see multiple 200+ mil guaranteed contracts?

when you look at the struggles in the nba/nfl/nhl with stern, goodell, and especially bettman...then you start to appreciate the stability of mlb and bud selig. maybe he's not hof-worthy because i don't put commisioners in, but the flack he's gotten is ridiculous.

[bigtrain]

His legacy is his initial "glacial response to the growing stain on baseball". Car Leasing Hall of Fame, maybe. Cooperstown, no.

[Jason]

If the Players from the era can't get in then Bud Selig should suffer the same fate.

[Jantz]

Depends on which Hall of Fame you are referring to?

Baseball Hall of Fame -- _ _ _ _ No! (You can fill in the blanks with whatever letters you want)

Incompetency Hall of Fame -- The vote would be unanimous.



Jantz

[novakjr]

Originally Posted by Jantz

Baseball Hall of Fame -- _ _ _ _ No! (You can fill in the blanks with whatever letters you want)

is "DRAY" ok? How bout "FERG"? "Guy-"?

Anyways. I agree, given all that has gone on under his watch, I'd say NO! BUT He will get inducted. Somehow he will manage to avoid the steroid links, and people will probably focus more on the good things he has done for the game.. Those I can't deny. My personal feeling is that he's a clueless douche. The steroid thing is a nightmare, OR it was necessary in bringing the game back to prominence, however you wanna view it. Either way the game could've been saved without them. I LOVE the wild-card, but absolutely DESPISE this new 2nd wild-card crap. I like the thought of replay, but I have a bad feeling that it will soon get WAY out of hand..

Selig is like the "Larry the Cable Guy" of commissioners. Most of what he's done, has had great merit at it's core, but he tends to go way over the top, over do things, and then runs it into the ground.. He's "Git 'r Done'd" everything to death. He just can't accept that once something works, you should just leave it be..

[nolemmings]

Selig in the baseball HOF would be the ultimate buffoonery

[HRBAKER]

To me Selig is just as tied to PEDs as Bonds and the rest of the group. I would never vote for him.

[Griffins]

No, and Bowie Kuhn shouldn't be in either.

[earlywynnfan]

Not only Kuhn, but what did Ford Frick ever do??

Ken

[Griffins]

Marvin Miller, on the other hand, should be in.

[almostdone]

Originally Posted by Griffins

Marvin Miller, on the other hand, should be in.

+1

[buymycards]

No

[billyb]

Not in Pete Rose's lifetime

[Chris Counts]

Yes, Marvin Miller should definitely be in ...

[ls7plus]

Originally Posted by Griffins

Marvin Miller, on the other hand, should be in.

Yep, right along with Adolph Hitler and Stalin! Miller's the guy who exposed the players for the mercenaries they were waiting desperately to become, the one who let us know almost all of them would grind any notion of team loyalty into the dust in return for the time and money the organization had invested in them, and go play elsewhere for an additional buck and a quarter! He's also most likely the guy who advised the players to cover their greedy butts with the statement that "I have to do what's best for my family." As if those 17 generations of little Pujols to come couldn't have been quite well taken care of through accepting the Cardinals' offer of $215 million, or so. Left to their own devices, almost all the players will always make the wrong decision, because they base it only on ME, ME, ME! Just my two cents worth, of course.

Bud had some difficult choices to make during his reign, and I think handled them quite well under the circumstances (I do think that Bonds, Clemons, McGwire, Sosa and others similarly situated will eventually get in the Hall, because they were simply the best of their era--and who's to say that Ruth, Gehrig and Foxx and company didn't actually have it easier insofar as hitting was concerned, with the pitchers' best weapons suddenly taken away from them--the scuffed, spit upon, dark and dirty, pounded to a pulp balls; virtually no relief specialists and the starter being expected to go a full nine; no sliders, for the most part, no split finger fastballs, no circle changes that break like a screwball but without the elbow strain, and no night games or jet lag. Take a look at what guys like Hornsby and Sisler did in the dead-ball era, compared to post-1919 play). Hmmm...sounds like an interesting topic for a separate thread!

Please pardon my ranting guys. Wish all of you the best,

Larry

[novakjr]

Originally Posted by ls7plus

Yep, right along with Adolph Hitler and Stalin! Miller's the guy who exposed the players for the mercenaries they were waiting desperately to become, the one who let us know almost all of them would grind any notion of team loyalty into the dust in return for the time and money the organization had invested in them, and go play elsewhere for an additional buck and a quarter! He's also most likely the guy who advised the players to cover their greedy butts with the statement that "I have to do what's best for my family." As if those 17 generations of little Pujols to come couldn't have been quite well taken care of through accepting the Cardinals' offer of $215 million, or so. Left to their own devices, almost all the players will always make the wrong decision, because they base it only on ME, ME, ME! Just my two cents worth, of course.

Please pardon my ranting guys. Wish all of you the best,

Larry

A similar thought has actually crossed my mind(minus the Hitler and Stalin part). I think ultimately, it's just a double edged sword. Which is honestly the same view that I hold on most unions. At their core and the principles on which they were founded, I find them to be very necessary. However, I think they've somewhat overgrown their purpose, and gotten to the point where they are just plain exploitive. Sadly, I say this as a proud member of a union(if that makes any sense). I don't know how much of the negative aspects can really be pinned on Mille though. I would wait a bit longer, so that we can fully see what the ultimate effect that his contribution will have had on the game, before making a final decision on him.

In a very similar breath. Why doesn't anyone talk about Curt Flood? Not as a player, but as a pioneer. The guy basically gave up his career by fighting the reserve clause. That to me deserves enshrinement..

[nolemmings]

I have no respect and never will for anyone who would compare Marvin Miller to Hitler or Stalin.

[dgo71]

Originally Posted by nolemmings

I have no respect and never will for anyone who would compare Marvin Miller to Hitler or Stalin.

+100

It's easy to look at today's players and call them greedy or selfish. But stop for a minute and think about their side of it. They have to work exceptionally hard to get to that point, making tons of personal sacrifices along the way. They are on the road roughly 3/4 of the year, away from their families and friends and have only a finite time in the game to make their money. Wouldn't you, at your job, want to be rewarded according to your performance at that job? And if you excelled at said job, wouldn't you want...no, EXPECT...to be in the top tier of the pay range? It just so happens that sports have a much higher revenue than our 9-to-5 lives thanks to billion dollar TV contracts, memorabilia sales, etc.

Also, do you have any idea what things were like PRE-Marvin Miller? All the derogatory statements you made about players would just as easily apply to the owners, who kept the lion's share of the revenue to themselves and basically held players under their thumb. Comiskey immediately comes to mind as the Scrooge to the White Sox players' Tiny Tim(s).

All that said, it's one thing to disagree with what Miller did (the executives who fought against him sure do, which is why he's not already a HOFer) but to compare him to an orchestrator of mass genocide is ridiculous and without merit.

[Hot Springs Bathers]

There is a wonderful line in Frank Deford's new autobiography pertaining to the commissioners in each sport. He says that the baseball owners only keep Selig in office because they all know that they are smarter than him.

[howard38]

.

[ls7plus]

I think some of you took my admittedly slanted sense of humor a bit too seriously. However, I certainly will not retreat from the position that Miller's "contribution" to the game was largely negative. There are essentially three groups that matter when it comes to any professional sport: (1) the owners; (2) the fans; and (3) the players. Miller's "work" was irrefutably adverse to the financial interests of the first two, and only arguably beneficial to the third. I would argue that the fans are the most important of the three, as without them, there simply is no professional game (I once asked Lem Barney, a personal friend of mine, how many HOF'ers there would be without the fans. To his credit, he got the answer absolutely correct: "none"). Of the three groups, only the owners and fans are really here to stay for any significant period, as the average player's career is something on the order of 3-5 years. Most of them are quite similar to the extras in movies like "Spartacus," or "Ben Hur"--essential to the production, yes, but a lot like widgets in the sense that they are to a large degree interchangeable. I would argue that it makes little sense to compensate them to the degree that is currently being done, when each and every one of them would rather clearly play for $200,000 or less per year (virtually none of them have any occupational alternatives that would allow them to earn anywhere close to that). My conclusion is that Miller's union has therefore produced a higher level of salaries than their skills really merit, i.e., what they could earn on a truly open market (and to have such a market, all of them, as Charley Finley originally suggested, would have to be made free agents every year--the limitations on free agency from year to year simply act to keep the supply down, and prices high). It is also an irrefutable matter of economic law that when a group organizes to exert upward pressure upon wages and succeeds to the point where such compensation is significantly higher than the skills brought to the market could merit in one that is truly free and open, then someone has to subsidize that rate of compensation. In the private sector, it is the consumer. In the public sector, it is the taxpayer.

Most of these guys are simply here today and gone tomorrow, never leaving any real lasting impression on the game, with a few obvious exceptions. It is simply my personal opinion that by so limiting the supply of free agents on a yearly basis, salaries are being kept substantially higher than the average player is truly worth. That situation has directly contributed to the use of PED's in the game by making it worth taking the risk of exposure from a financial standpoint to cheat (after all, who really cares if you're caught, so long as you've got 30 million dollars or so in your pocket?). Can anyone say "Balco East?"

Thus, in conclusion, while Miller is indeed truly famous, I would hardly consider him worthy of any serious consideration for the hall of fame.

Sorry if I offended anyone by my earlier post, which was meant only as a point of emphasis, rather than a moral commentary on Mr. Miller.

Thanks for listening, and best wishes to all members.

Larry

[glynparson]

forbid some workers with leverage, hard to replace, hold the bosses feet to the flames to make more money. Sounds like something every working man should be in favor of, what am I missing. Or do you also long for the days of slavery and indentured servitude.

[glynparson]