It’s Five Years Later and This Bud’s for You

Five years later, he is still acting, still the commissioner, and yes, he is still Bud.

A few minutes after major league owners installed Bud Selig as chairman of their ruling executive council, this is what he said: “I hope it’s relatively short term, but if you ask me this morning what short term is, I don’t know.”

That was Sept. 9, 1992. These days, the man who doubles as owner of the Milwaukee Brewers still says he doesn’t intend to become the permanent commissioner. But he still refuses to rule it out.

Even though there’s a search committee to find a successor, many owners expect the 63-year-old Selig to remain in the $2 million-a-year job for quite a while.

Some of his detractors call him acting commissioner for life. Already, Selig’s time in office has run on longer than the terms of 27 of 42 U.S. presidents, including Bill Clinton. There have been 37 managerial changes since Selig took over and eight of the 28 teams have been sold. Three more are in negotiations.

As he approaches Tuesday’s anniversary, Selig can bask in his accomplishments: interleague play, three divisions, wild-card teams, a new round of playoffs, revenue sharing. Possibly realignment, too.

But looming over it all is baseball’s 7 1/2-month strike, a lost World Series, a drop in attendance and more than $850 million in operating losses--despite soaring ticket prices.

“I think that Bud has done an incredibly good job navigating baseball through tough times,” former commissioner Peter Ueberroth, a constant critic of the owners, said last week. “He’ll be recognized one day by the Hall of Fame for his efforts.”

Selig’s face is more lined than it was when he took over, two days after a coup ousted Fay Vincent. It’s not the only change in his life. Now he travels by private plane. He traded up from a vacation townhouse to a house in Scottsdale, Ariz. Some of the extra money has gone into contemporary art, always an interest.

But he still has a rambling, almost grandfatherly touch. He will spend entire days on the telephone, trying to talk opponents of change into submission. Usually, he succeeds.

“He’s missed his calling,” said Chicago White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf, probably his closest friend. “He should be the Senate majority leader.”

Allan Huber Selig, whose roommate at the University of Wisconsin was U.S. Sen. Herb Kohl, is perplexing to deal with at times, accentuating the positive, avoiding the negative and feigning ignorance when he’s not ready to reveal an action.

He just hates to say no. Because of that, he sometimes blurs fact and fiction, especially when pressured by reporters or congressional committees.

But even union head Donald Fehr, who at times has held Selig personally responsible for the length of the 1994-95 strike, respects him for what he calls “tremendous influence” over other owners.

“We have done things, taken steps that given the history, the over-100-year history, you would have to characterize as extraordinary,” said Atlanta Braves president Stan Kasten.

In his other job, as president of the Atlanta Hawks, Kasten gets a close look at the current standard for commissioners, the NBA’s David Stern. Kasten says Selig measures up.

“He cares about every single person’s opinion,” Kasten said. “He doesn’t have two styles, he has one. Oftentimes, that is terribly valuable in helping people get to the same conclusion. On the other hand, it often has the inevitable byproduct of having things take longer than they might. But if it gets you to the same result, one might argue that it’s an acceptable price to pay.”

Selig won’t assess his reign.

“I often say, as a history major, that I will let history decide,” he stated last week. But he did say, “this was the most active, significant change in any five-year period of baseball.”

Before becoming acting commissioner, he chaired baseball’s Player Relations Committee during the 1985 strike and 1990 lockout, and headed the commissioner search committees that recommended Ueberroth and A. Bartlett Giamatti.

“There’s no question that most of the people trusted me implicitly, and I trusted them, and there was a long relationship,” he says of his interaction with other owners.

“Everybody has a different style. I believe in this generation and this age you need to develop consensus rather than tell them to do something. I want them to understand why we need to do something.”

Five years in charge has given him a new perspective on what commissioners do. He says he now understands why some initiatives fail.

“All the years I sat out with all the owners, it was easy to blame the commissioner or blame the league presidents or blame the people in the central offices,” he says. “When you’re on the other side, you understand where the blame is, which is usually a lot of places.”

Since 1991, baseball’s average ticket price has increased 39%, from $8.64 to $11.98. Owners say that increase, and the losses caused by the strike, would have happened no matter who was in charge.

Ueberroth, citing the increased cost of going to the ballpark, says “the state of the game is not good.” Yet he thinks Selig would be effective as baseball’s permanent leader.

Attendance is up 5.7% this season following a 6.4% increase last year. The average of 28,400 is up 12% from 1995, but down 10% from its pre-strike level.

A labor agreement is in place through 2000, possibly 2001, ensuring the immediate future will be free of strikes and lockouts.

“If we do our work properly in the future and avoid the acrimony of the past, we have the chance to see the game grow to new heights,” Selig says.

“If the work stoppage of 1994 lets the next generation not have to put up with the eight work stoppages our generation had to put up with, then despite the pain, I think it would be worthwhile.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

The Czars of Baseball

Major league baseball commissioners:

* Kenesaw Mountain Landis, Nov. 12, 1920 to Nov. 25, 1944.

* Happy Chandler, April 24, 1945 to July 15, 1951.

* Ford Frick, Sept. 20, 1951 to Nov. 16, 1965.

* William Eckert, Nov. 17, 1965 to Dec. 20, 1968.

* Bowie Kuhn, Feb. 4, 1969 to Sept. 30, 1984.

* Peter Ueberroth, Oct. 1, 1984 to March 31, 1989.

* A. Bartlett Giamatti, April 1, 1989 to Sept. 1, 1989.

* Fay Vincent, Sept. 13, 1989 to Sept. 7, 1992.

* Bud Selig (acting), Sept. 9, 1992 to present.