Beeston Is Baseball’s New President

In a move long anticipated and widely applauded, Paul Beeston resigned as president of the Toronto Blue Jays on Tuesday and accepted baseball’s newly created position of president and chief operating officer.

Baseball sources said again that Beeston’s hiring probably will prompt acting Commissioner Bud Selig, the Milwaukee Brewer owner, to take the position on a permanent basis and move to baseball’s New York offices with Beeston.

Selig reiterated Tuesday he is not interested, but he has now been in the interim role for almost five years, and he acknowledged he is very close to Beeston.

“Paul is an outstanding executive who has maintained excellent personal relationships with just about everyone in the game and is highly respected for his abilities of persuasion and compromise,” Selig said.

Beeston, 52, will be in charge of all phases of the New York office, with the exception of American League and National League operations.

His umbrella will include the Player Relations Committee and Major League Baseball Properties.

The New York office has been basically rudderless since Fay Vincent’s forced resignation as commissioner Sept. 7, 1992.

If Beeston is akin to a deputy commissioner, he said the title doesn’t matter, that his goal is to get everyone on the same page so baseball can regain its preeminent position.

“I think my style with the Blue Jays would indicate that I’ve been successful in getting people to work as a team,” he said by phone.

“We need to build that teamwork in baseball. I mean, it’s clearly the best game, and that’s not easy for a Canadian to say.”

Few baseball executives are more respected by the players’ union.

During the recent labor dispute, Beeston consistently pursued areas of compromise--among owners and in private conversations with the union, whose executive director, Donald Fehr, called Beeston’s hiring a good day for baseball.

“It’s no secret that there’s been need for day-by-day administration in baseball’s central offices,” Fehr said. “This appears to be a move in the right direction. Paul has been a very respected club executive for a long time.”

Beeston, an economics and political science graduate of the University of Western Ontario in 1967, was the first executive hired by the Blue Jays in 1976. He is leaving because of a change of ownership and said, “I’ve had 22 spectacular years with the Blue Jays. I love the game and love the people in it, so [accepting the COO offer] wasn’t a difficult decision. I wasn’t going to stay with the club, and I wanted to give something back. It’s going to be an exciting challenge.”

Beeston cited baseball’s changing face and said he considered Selig to be a visionary.

“I’d like it very much [if he became the commissioner],” Beeston said. “If not, we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”