Selig uses new memoir to cover all his bases
Nobody’s talking about back acne any more.
Nobody’s more aware of that than Bud Selig.
At a moment when baseballs are flying over outfield fences at a higher rate than ever before and the all-time record for home runs hit in a season by a team and by all teams is on pace to be obliterated, the prevailing theories about the forces behind this surge revolve around ball aerodynamics, drag and friction.
It was only 20 years or so ago, remember, when the whispers were beginning that a pharmaceutical connection could be made between the rapid assault on decades-old home run records and the sudden emergence of bulked-up, moody big-leaguers strutting through clubhouses with pockmarked backs.
While we may yet learn of an undetected chemical in play right now, the big difference is that now Major League Baseball does maintain a rigorous PED testing program with its players, with the intended consequence of relegating artificial production enhancement into the shadows.
For the former commissioner who lived through and survived the tawdry steroids era, that evolution marks one of the most profound changes in the game that occurred under his watch from 1992 through 2015.
He details the “agonizing” era in his new highly readable and important memoir, “For the Good of the Game,” in which he begrudgingly accepts the moniker of being the “steroid commissioner,” writing “That’s okay, I guess. It’s not fair, I don’t like it, but I’ve come to understand it.”
Which is why, he said in one portion of a wide-ranging interview that also covered the economics of the game, many Red Sox tidbits and the Hall of Fame, he appreciates as much as anyone the shift in tone and content of today’s surging offense.
“I detail in the book how agonizing it all was but I’m really very proud about where baseball is,” said Selig the day after the All-Star Game when he paid a visit to his longtime friend, Hank
Aaron, in Atlanta. “Remember this, baseball never had a drug-testing policy. We went through the cocaine era of the ’80s and couldn’t get a drug testing program. So, here we are today. It took awhile but we have the toughest testing program in American sports.”
Selig paused to chuckle like only a former commissioner can who has lived through BALCO and Biogenesis when it comes to mixing drugs with performance.
“I’m not saying it’s perfect because you know, there are chemists out there working at all times,” said Selig. “But I feel good about where we are.”
Most memoir writers seize the chance to right perceived wrongs and set the historical record straight, and Selig circles the wagons around his legacy the tightest when it comes to the perception that he and the owners were slow to react to the growth and impact of steroids. On other matters in the book, like economic reform, Selig offers refreshing takes on the limited vision and selfish reasoning of his fellow owners. But when it comes to accusations of letting the scandal grow under his watch because of inattention or a belief that fans wanted more offense, Selig offers withering critiques of the union’s repeated resistance to testing.
“One of the great reasons for writing this book is the historical mythology that, if I put my professor’s cap on here, we were slow to react,” said Selig. “That’s just nonsense. That is really historically incorrect.
“I never had one owner in a meeting or outside of a meeting who ever said to me ‘Don’t pursue drug testing.’ They were so supportive, it was unbelievable. What people seem to forget is that drug testing, good or bad, is subject to collective bargaining as a matter of law. So the commissioner is not omnipotent. He can’t transcend the law.”
Twenty years ago, Selig wrote, he and MLB were accused of being willing accomplices to the offensive surge by altering the baseball, as well as being slow to react on the PED front.
As he wrote: “(I)t’s beyond preposterous to think that we were somehow orchestrating these developments to increase attendance and ratings.”
Heard it all
Selig heard the theory promoted by Astros veteran pitcher Justin Verlander at the All-Star Game that MLB deliberately altered the baseball in order to make it soar farther.
“I’ve heard it all,” said Selig. “I haven’t talked to (commissioner) Rob (Manfred) in the last couple of days but I want to remind you that Sandy Alderson (who worked for Selig from 1998 to 2005) and I went through that in ’99 and ’00, I sent Sandy to Haiti and everywhere to check out the bats and the balls. There’s a multiplicity of factors involved.”
Meaning, said Selig, he still feels that it’s “beyond preposterous” the sport of baseball would tweak the manufacturing of baseballs.
“I don’t know, so I don’t really want to comment but my comment was right then and I’ll leave it to you to decide from there,” said Selig.
Selig was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame two years ago.
Refreshingly, he believes that his nemesis, players’ union founder Marvin Miller, belongs there as well despite considerable present-day
resistance from owners.
“I know it’s unpopular in some quarters but the criteria for getting into the Hall is the impact he – he or she – made on baseball,” said Selig.
Despite being forthright and candid on a number of issues in the book, Selig cannot come out and say that he does not want PED-associated players like Barry Bonds to join him in Cooperstown. While he admits that the Hall is comprised of flawed individuals, including owners who were caught redhanded colluding with players, he is left with strong feelings about the “residue” of the steroids era. Let the writers decide, said Selig.
“Everybody knows who did what and what they did and how they reacted,” said Selig. “My feelings are based on – I hate to be trite here – the good of the game.”
Tough on Bonds
Selig comes down hard on Bonds in the book, which opens with Selig grumpily following Bonds across the U.S. in the summer of 2007 as Bonds encroaches on the career home run record of Selig’s lifelong friend Aaron. When Bonds, post-BALCO, asked Selig if he could get Aaron to return one of his calls to discuss a business venture, Selig found the request to be galling and further confirmation that he did not like Bonds.
Selig did not dispute the notion that of all the ballplayers associated with PED’s, Bonds comes off the worst in the book.
“I made judgments on how I thought they treated the game, in the best interests of the game,” said Selig. “After all, commissioners are humans and I just developed opinions based on what I saw, heard and dealt with.”
That Selig will forever be associated with the likes of Bonds and the pre- and postdrug testing era will never change. But what makes the rest of the book such a worthwhile read are Selig’s deep dives into all the other transformations that occurred under his watch: the wild card, the WBC, instant replay, interleague play, retiring Jackie Robinson
Jr.’s No. 42, MLBAM and of course, the economic upheaval. His depiction of how he corralled owners out of outmoded, selfish groupthink and licking their wounds from constant losses to the union to agree to revenue sharing and luxury taxes that is currently working to the advantage of the owners is the legacy he is proudest of.
Harrington booster
But the owners were always looking out for their self interests, and resistance to revenue sharing was strong. Former Red Sox CEO
John Harrington was one of the fiercest objectors.
“There is truth to that but in the end, they went,” said Selig. “That’s my point about ‘the good of the game.’ In the end, they did it for the good of the game. I really mean that. I had less trouble with owners than any previous commissioner ever had.”
Selig said that in 2001 and 2002, when Harrington put the Red Sox up for sale, the commissioner went against his preference for local owners. He preferred the group formed by Marlins owner
John Henry, former Padres
owner Tom Werner and Larry Lucchino and Harrington helped with that.
“John (Harrington) was not only cooperative but he was extremely helpful” with guiding the sale of the Red Sox. Selig labels the sale to Henry-Werner-Lucchino in the book as the “creative solution.”
He elaborated over the phone about why he engineered the transaction.
“I’ll tell you why – they had the cash, they had the money, they had the experience and I knew them,” said Selig. “The Boston franchise – I’m not saying it because I’m talking to you – is so important in so many ways. And, as it turns out, I hope you don’t mind me saying this, but I made the right decision.
“By the way, this idea they weren’t No. 1, that there were higher bids is just not accurate. I know I took a lot of abuse.”
As for the sale of the Dodgers to Boston parking lot magnate Frank McCourt that Selig also helped arrange in 2004 and then reverse in 2012 after it had turned into a financial and personal quagmire, Selig said it was “Painful. Painful. Painful, one word that comes to mind. Oh, I know what happened, no question. They were undercapitalized, which led to a lot of trauma.”
Selig is a big fan of Brookline native and former Sox GM Theo Epstein. He also helped arrange for Epstein to leave the Sox after the 2011 season. He wrote of the “tremendous tension between ownership and the front office after the run of championships began, and it boiled to the surface in 2011. Permission was granted to the Cubs’ owners to talk to Epstein but “the Red Sox,” wrote Selig “were being difficult about letting Epstein out of his deal. They wanted to receive some of the Cubs’ top prospects as compensation.” Selig wrote that he “finally persuaded Henry, Werner, and Lucchino to do what was good baseball, which was for Theo to come to Chicago.”
Towards the conclusion of the interview, Selig said that Red Sox legend Ted Williams began to call him almost once a week over the final three or four years of his life.
“We hit it off, and he loved to talk about the issues and we did,” said Selig. “And he started every conversation with ‘You have the worst (expletive deleted) job in America.’”