Q & A With Bud Selig

Major league baseball has been without a commissioner since Fay Vincent was forced to resign 13 months ago. During that time, a 10-person Executive Committee, with Milwaukee Brewers owner Bud Selig as chairman, has run the game. During a 45-minute interview before Game 2 of the World Series, Selig candidly discussed the game’s promise as well as its problems. Without prompting, he talked unabashedly about his devotion as a young fan to Yankees center fielder Joe DiMaggio and the lore of the game in the 1940s and ‘50s.

Question: That’s a good place to start. Is the game as romantic now as it was to you as a young boy?

Answer: I have always loved the romantic aspect of this game. That’s one of the reasons I was so fond of Bart Giamatti. He was a great Red Sox fan and I loved the Yankees. We walked the streets of New York one night until 1:30 a.m. talking about the summer of ’49. Do people still feel that way? I think they do. Baseball as a game still has great impact, but society today is so different than it was then. People are more sophisticated, the world moves so much faster. Even so, I hope young people growing up in Wisconsin feel the same way today about Robin Yount that I felt about Joe D. Maybe the game is not as romantic now, but as a society, we’re not as romantic either.

Q: What is the state of the game now?

A: The only thing left to debate is how dynamic baseball is. Yes, we have our problems and we’re aware of that. There has been a lot of negativism. The economics and the problems we face are different and more complex than in the past. On the other hand, we see baseball draw more than 70 million people in a season, so who can say we’re not having an enormous impact? People are going to games, watching games on TV . . . my gosh, we do have problems, but it’s a magnificent game with a fantastic history. That’s something no other sport has. I’m not sure the impact isn’t much greater now than ever before. The focus for the game is back on the field and that’s where it belongs. People are tired of hearing about all the acrimony.

Q: The economics are certainly more difficult.

A: I don’t know why people are so startled by that. Economics are different now for everybody. Look at all the downsizing businesses in this country have gone through the last three or four years. We had a game that operated with significant patterns for years, but they don’t work anymore. We’re straining to adjust, like any American business. Do we have more competition? Of course, the world has changed dramatically. Could we market ourselves better? Yes, although our marketing is much better today than it ever has been.

Q: You’ve been without a commissioner for 13 months. Does that length of time mean the job will be less powerful once you do hire someone?

A: No. I have been raised under a commissioner system and I believe in it. Again, this is a new era. This has been a very useful period for baseball. Owners have learned to reach consensus. There was so much acrimony a year ago and we have pretty much changed that. We have accomplished three significant things in that time. One, we have restructured the commissioner’s job and defined it. He or she will have more power than before. Two, we have a new TV policy. We had no policy a year ago. When we made a new agreement (forming a joint venture with NBC and ABC), we executed a plan after a lot of thought. And, finally, everyone thought the owners just wanted control so they could provoke a strike or force a lockout and that hasn’t happened. We are talking revenue-sharing, and we would have had a better chance of flying to the moon in 11 seconds than talking about revenue-sharing a year ago. The new commissioner will not be omnipotent, but he never has been. David Stern and Paul Tagliabue are not omnipotent but they do just fine. There was a romantic view of the commissioner’s job that was just not quite realistic. We feel as though we have solved that. There are some things only the owners can do. The new commissioner will have a lot of work to do, but he or she will have a road map. People who talk about the game wandering aimlessly in the last year just don’t have a clue.

Q: Who are the finalists?

A: I can’t divulge that. We have a lot of very qualified people, but we promised we would protect their identity.

Q: Will you take the job?

A: No. I have said that all along and I haven’t changed. I don’t want to do this on a permanent basis.

Q: Should fans be optimistic that the full schedule will be played in 1994?

A: Yes, I think so. It’s up to Richard Ravitch and Don Fehr to work out the details, but I am an optimist by nature.

Q: You have talked about forging a partnership with the players, but Don Fehr has said they were excluded from the process in the decisions on the TV contract and realignment. Is that a fair feeling?

A: John Harrington is working very closely with Don and Gene Orza on the new schedule. Ken Schanzer (chief executive of the television partnership) is bending over backward to include Don in working on the new TV arrangement. Now, you can debate how the players were brought in when the agreement was reached--maybe it was early enough and maybe not--but we must have a partnership both ways.

Q: Nearly every franchise is talking about reducing payrolls next year. That will mean lower salaries for some group of players. Will that make the negotiations more difficult?

A: One general manager told me yesterday he thinks there will be more players than ever before who are not tendered contracts this year.