Is Selig qualified to remain at the helm of MLB?

[Appling]

Bud Selig has done some great things as Commissioner: He has avoided a work-stoppage; he got the players union to agree to (limited) drug testing; and he found a way to make the ASG "meaningful". (Well, maybe 2 out of 3!)

Yet in other aspects of his job, he seems to have failed badly. Which of these reasons would you cite as cause for his removal as Grand Commissioner of Baseball? (You may choose more than one answer in the poll.)

1. Looking the other way (head in the sand) -- and then mishandling of the steroids issue.

2. The last expansion of baseball was a disaster -- premature, and it puts minor league pitchers on MLB rosters. Also, cities like Phoenix and Tampa Bay should have baseball only in the spring training season.

3. After expansion, he then tried to push "Contraction" -- so his banker friend in Minnesota could sell his franchise to MLB for more money than he could get from a potential new owner.

4. Taking loans from another team owner, at special, favorable rates.

5. A flawed playoff system -- wild card teams should not make it to the World Series. Winning the regular season is no longer important.

6. Crazy ideas that diminish the game -- such as Inter-League games during the regular season, and giving the ASG winner home field advantage in the World Series.

7. Mis-management of the Expos, forcing them to split home field in two different regions and two different cultures. Very bad treatment.

8. Continuing to benefit his ownership of the Brewers (thru his daughter) -- clearly a conflict of interest for the man who should be unbiased.

[SamtheBravesFan]

1, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7.

[Ytown Tribe fan]

i love wording of this poll, compared to the thread title.

Do you work for Fox news?

[RedSoxVT92]

For me it would be, mishandling of steroids, contraction, loans from owners, mis-managment of the Expos, conficlt of intrest (Brewers), and Seligs crazy ideas (although I like inter-league play, I dislike the ASG deciding homefield advantage to the World Series imensly).

[SamtheBravesFan]

i love wording of this poll, compared to the thread title.

Do you work for Fox news?

Um... I don't get it.

[BoofBonser26]

Um... I don't get it.
Read the title, then the poll question. They're two different things.

Good one, Y-Town, by the way. :laugh

[Appling]

i love wording of this poll, compared to the thread title.

Do you work for Fox news?
I thought that "Is he qualified to remain at the helm?" and
"should he be removed as commissioner?"
were simply two sides of the same question.

A "yes' on the first question and a "no" on the poll question should mean the same thing.

Sorry if I caused any confusion.
No I don't work for Fox News. I just see a number of threads discussing Bud Selig, and I would like to see a breakdown on reasons why many oppose Selig.

[BoofBonser26]

I only voted for the crazy playoff system and crazy ideas. Interleague play, the crazy All-Star "counts" thing, and the like.

Notably, I didn't vote for steroids. In my opinion, most any person serving as commisioner would be tempted to ignore the issue under the influence of the boom in attendence and interest. It would take a truly great commisioner to deal with steroids head-on in the 90's, and I don't think it's fair to expect Selig to be great.

Now, can we expect him to be competent? Yes. Is he? Well, that's why there's this poll. :rolleyes:

[rockin500]

i only voted for the conflict of interest.

[BaseballHistoryNut]

Bud Selig has done some great things as Commissioner: He has avoided a work-stoppage; he got the players union to agree to (limited) drug testing; and he found a way to make the ASG "meaningful". (Well, maybe 2 out of 3!)

Yet in other aspects of his job, he seems to have failed badly. Which of these reasons would you cite as cause for his removal as Grand Commissioner of Baseball? (You may choose more than one answer in the poll.)

1. Looking the other way (head in the sand) -- and then mishandling of the steroids issue.

2. The last expansion of baseball was a disaster -- premature, and it puts minor league pitchers on MLB rosters. Also, cities like Phoenix and Tampa Bay should have baseball only in the spring training season.

3. After expansion, he then tried to push "Contraction" -- so his banker friend in Minnesota could sell his franchise to MLB for more money than he could get from a potential new owner.

4. Taking loans from another team owner, at special, favorable rates.

5. A flawed playoff system -- wild card teams should not make it to the World Series. Winning the regular season is no longer important.

6. Crazy ideas that diminish the game -- such as Inter-League games during the regular season, and giving the ASG winner home field advantage in the World Series.

7. Mis-management of the Expos, forcing them to split home field in two different regions and two different cultures. Very bad treatment.

8. Continuing to benefit his ownership of the Brewers (thru his daughter) -- clearly a conflict of interest for the man who should be unbiased.

Great nickname, Luke. The guy's an all-time favorite of mine, way underrated in light of his gaudy career OBP.

But you say one of the "great things" Selig has done is getting the players to agree to limited drug testing? We must be remembering events differently.

It's my recollection Selig and his laughable MLB physician went before Congress, behaved about as dishonestly as anyone could (except Palmeiro), got reamed for it, subsequently got threatened with losing the Antitrust Law exemption they've enjoyed for the past century, then did an abrupt 180 and returned, advancing a bunch of Congress-pleasing proposals. One Congressmember was prompted to say, "You've come a long way, Mr. Selig."

The Players' Union, of course, saw what had happened to Selig and his doctor when they were so dishonest and unreasonable in the face of the obvious, and they had no desire to meet the same fate... although in truth, I think that's still what's going to happen to them. But for now, they've made what you correctly call partial concessions and have agreed to certain types of drug testing.

I won't be satisfied until MLB and the government have a test for HGH and are allowed to examine the urine samples which they have amassed over the last two years, so they know the massive scope of the problem. No, I don't want the results made public, because I think that could just about destroy MLB, but I want them to know what they're up against. From what I've been told by an ex-MLB player, they're up against a tidal wave of HGH use.

Anyway, after Selig's disgraceful first appearance before Congress, the way he and his comrades got strafed there, and the fact he only then did anything meaningful about the PED problem, I sure can't give him credit for having done anything--much less a "great thing"--about the steroid/HGH problem. To the contrary, I consider PED's easily the biggest problem in my 1/2 century as a baseball fanatic, and I consider him the emperor who knowingly looked the other way, fiddling while Rome burned if you will, so the seats could be filled up again. He acted only when he had to, and at that, only after he found out his vast inherited wealth wasn't going to enable him to stonewall Congress with transparent b.s.

BHN

[geezer]

You also forgot the following, letting out if his hands handling the 1994 Strike, for me that was just enough.

Oh, and another thing too, the Home-Field Advantage through World Series is via All Star game winner, what a joke.

[BaseballHistoryNut]

Yeah, how on earth did I forget the All-Star Game/World Series fiasco? Thanx.

[jalbright]

To answer the title of the thread: No, No, No!!! A much better question is does this doofus belong in baseball at all? Another one would be would you trust this man to handle a paper route? I'd answer the first question I propose maybe, there's plenty of them in the game (see Philadelphia for examples). For my second proposed question, I'd say only if I couldn't find anyone better, and I doubt I'd be that desperate.

The #1 gripe I have with Bud is the head-up-the-rectum approach to steroids and other PEDs, though the conflict issues (the loan and the dual role) are a strong #2.

Jim Albright

[Richmond Hill Phoenix]

2, 3, 6, 7.

He should have thought about the markets he was bringing baseball to. Also, he pretty much ruined the Expos by taking away half of their "home field advantage". Finally, I don't know much about the business aspect of his involvement with the Brewers, but it doesn't seem ethical to have any connections with any teams.

[Monarchs29]

To make it a little easier to vote, you might have included after the first 8, "all of the above".

Bud the Slug should never have been Commissioner. IMO, the owners needed someone to fill the position and BS, thinking he was the answer to everyone's prayer, was the only one to bite.

His worse two...IMO...

The whole Expos thing from start to finish. No one can convince me there wasn't a conspiracy involved in his manipulations of the ownership of the Red Sox, Marlins and Expos. Especially, with Loria!

This whole idea of the winner of the ASG getting home-field advantage in the playoffs is assinine. For any sport played anywhere in the world, the team with the best record throughout the regular season, gets home-field advantage. Leave it Bud to screw that up.

The sad part about his tenure is, we have to put up with him until 2009. I believe that's when his contract runs out. I stand to be corrected on the date. With the CBA expiring at the end of this season, it's anybody's guess what jewels he'll come up with prior to the 2007 season.

[BaseballHistoryNut]

To make it a little easier to vote, you might have included after the first 8, "all of the above".

Bud the Slug should never have been Commissioner. IMO, the owners needed someone to fill the position and BS, thinking he was the answer to everyone's prayer, was the only one to bite.

His worse two...IMO...

The whole Expos thing from start to finish. No one can convince me there wasn't a conspiracy involved in his manipulations of the ownership of the Red Sox, Marlins and Expos. Especially, with Loria!

This whole idea of the winner of the ASG getting home-field advantage in the playoffs is assinine. For any sport played anywhere in the world, the team with the best record throughout the regular season, gets home-field advantage. Leave it Bud to screw that up.

The sad part about his tenure is, we have to put up with him until 2009. I believe that's when his contract runs out. I stand to be corrected on the date. With the CBA expiring at the end of this season, it's anybody's guess what jewels he'll come up with prior to the 2007 season.

Well, give them credit for one thing:

If you've read a lot of bios of the 1920's and 1930's players, you know that the Commissioner has always been a pawn of the owners, imbued with an illusion of great power which they carefully planted in his head, etc. But when they put Selig-the-owner in there, they quit playing this decades-old game. They stripped away the veneer of pretext they had kept there so long, with their "best interests of baseball" and "neutral commissioner" hogwash.

Now EVERYONE knows what we have known all along: The Commissioner is in bed with the owners, is at least one of them in ideological terms, and far more often is a foot soldier in their army who exists largely for media spin control--a role the media accept unquestioningly, despite its obvious moral corruption, as they play their own morally debased, sellout role in this stuff.

ARGGHHH!

Baseball History Nut

[blslivewire]

The only thing I ever hear anyone say in Bud's defense is interleague play. But that was only a temporary fix to a permanent problem.

[Lou Diam0nd]

The funny thing is half of you clowns probably would of done a worse job when it came to handeling the 'problems' selig had to deal with. HeHe.

[Williamsburg2599]

The funny thing is half of you clowns probably would of done a worse job when it came to handeling the 'problems' selig had to deal with. HeHe.
How do you know that you could?

[Lou Diam0nd]

I couldn't. Nobody could. To bash him because he didn't 'stop' something impossible to stop is ridiculous. To think some dinky steroid or amphetamines testing will stop players from taking supplements is downright hilarious. One thing that I did find funny though is selig's approved 'supplements' which are about as effective as drinking toilet water.

[Erik Bedard]

Nine letters. E-X-P-O-S/P-E-D-S.

[markfnc]

I voted good job, only for bottom line. Baseball is in as good a position in a long time money wise, due to shared revenue, internet etc. A smart small market team has a chance (Twins, A's)

[KCGHOST]

The title "Is Selig Qualified ..." and then the choices but one are of the "let's bash Bud" variety. Anyone who can retain his job as long as Selig has with the strong support of his employers is obviously qualified for the job.

The fact that Bud's execution of the Owner's agenda doesn't suit your pollyanna view of the game doesn't count for anything.

Let's make something clear. The owners are in the game to make money. The players are in the game to make money. The Union is in the business to make money. Not a darn one of them is in it "for the love of the game".

The only ones who are in it for their love of the game is the fans and most of them have sold out to the union.