Despite harrowing mistakes, Selig deserves credit for game’s prosperity

There was no World Series in 1994. The Fall Classic had been an annual fixture every year since 1905, despite two world wars, a great depression and even a deadly earthquake. But it couldn’t survive a players’ strike precipitated by what was probably the most mean-spirited, wrong-headed campaign ever undertaken by sports owners against their athletes.

The point man of that effort, Allan H. “Bud” Selig, will be inducted into the Hall of Fame on Sunday. Strangely enough, he probably belongs there. At least half of him does. The half that led the game to unprecedented heights after first creating an unprecedented mess richly deserves the honor.

In the beginning Selig was called “Bud Lite” and “Bud ‘Molehill’ Selig,” and he seemed to do his best to live down to those unflattering nicknames.

As owner of the Milwaukee Brewers he joined with the majority of fellow owners in an effort to break the power of the Players Association. The first obstacle was Commissioner Fay Vincent, who the owners feared would attempt to use his authority to thwart their plan. In a 1992 vote, 18 of the 26 owners expressed “no confidence” in Vincent, causing him to step down. The rampaging owners then established Selig as their “acting commissioner” and jointly began executing their plan, which they was aimed for the 1995 season.

The players got wind of the scheme and launched a pre-emptive strike in August of 1994, effectively ending the season. The owners didn’t budge through the rest of the summer, fall or winter. Before spring training began they declared an impasse and imposed non-negotiated conditions on the players. The players, of course, objected, but the owners opened camps regardless, using replacement players, mostly recruited from the low minors and from independent leagues. They were prepared to open the season with these players when federal courts intervened.

Ruling on a suit brought by the Players Association, Judge Sonia Sotomayor (now a Supreme Court justice) ruled that the owners’ scheme was illegal, forcing them to capitulate. They agreed to bring the players back under the terms of their old contract. The scheme, which ultimately gained them nothing, cost baseball an immeasurable amount of popularity. Attendance and television ratings both plummeted sharply. One franchise, the Montreal Expos, wound up without an owner and was operated by Major League Baseball.

Selig wanted to eliminate the Expos and proposed that MLB “contract” two teams — the Expos and the Minnesota Twins. This was only two years after baseball had added two teams by expansion. The contraction scheme led to firestorm of protests, especially in Congress, and Selig eventually abandoned the idea.

He soon had bigger problems with Congress. In 2005, a House of Representatives committee investigating steroid use brought Selig, Players Association director Donald Fehr and several active players in for public testimony. The result was a disaster for baseball’s leadership, which had ignored the growing problem for years. Selig came across as ineffective at best and dishonest at worst. Few would have predicted that day that he would go into the Hall of Fame 12 years later.

Guess what? “Bud Lite” grew up. He learned from his mistakes and he didn’t repeat them.

He blunted Congress’s sharp horns by retaining former Senator George Mitchell to investigate the steroid mess. Mitchell’s report was scathing, but Selig’s response was to work with the Players Association (something he’d been unwilling to do in the past) to implement meaningful testing of players and serious penalties for violators.

He streamlined and consolidated the American League and National League operations, and brought all of Major League Baseball under one roof, headed by the Commissioner.

Working with, rather than against, the Players Association, he helped negotiate a prolonged labor peace.

Basic Agreements (contracts between the players and owners) were hammered out with give and take on both sides rather than by hissing and growling. Contracts with cable television outlets have enhanced the revenue stream and both sides dipped in. At the same time rules were adopted that curbed the excesses of the rich clubs and made baseball more competitive than ever.

As a result, today’s game is the healthiest and wealthiest it’s ever been. Most of the players earn millions of dollars every season. The teams don’t open their books, but nobody is complaining of red ink. Twelve franchises have reached the World Series in the last 10 years. Twenty-seven have participated in the postseason.

That 1994 World Series stoppage and the subsequent dip the game took are nothing but history.

Bud Selig deserves plenty of blame for those bad old days. But he also deserves plenty of credit for today’s prosperity.