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1. TerpNats Posted: November 29, 2009 at 12:05 AM (#3398253)although, to throw out an analogy, people thought apple would die when steve jobs took a leave of absence, but they had a lot more talent behind him than anyone realized. i think MLB's situation could be a lot worse than that if separate owners go for a power grab, but it could also be less than a hiccup.
Time for Kim Ng, maybe?
MLB corporate doesn't exactly have the same pool of talent behind them as Apple. It's a bizarrely small operation. Jimmy Lee Williams is more of a PR guy than anything else.
Heck, I'd rather have Bill James himself for a commissioner.
Seriously, MLB has been run since 1985 by four men (Ueberroth, Giamatti, Vincent and Selig) all born within a few years of each other. The owners might need to do in '12 what the NFL did when this man died in 1959 -- look to someone 30 years younger as a successor.
Jimmie Lee Solomon, perhaps? Or am I missing the ex-Red Sox manager's latest career path?
How are we going to tell?
And, IMNSHO, he wasn't even particularly good at that...
Sure, he f*cked up the economy twice and made everyone poorer in relation to where they were 9 years ago, but the ultra-rich are even richer in relation to everyone who isn't in the top 1% and that is all they care about. In every contest there have to be winners.
Bob Costas will no doubt nominate himself, as will Scott Boras.
George Dubya, George Will, Keith Olbermann, Stephen King, Kevin Costner, Cal Ripken, Billy Crystal, Bill Spaceman Lee, and Alyssa Milano will all be jokingly be put forward in the press as potential commishes. Mark Cuban will get involved in some form, simply because he's Mark Cuban.
But of course, there is one man who, if made commisioner, would have Baseball be the most popular sports in America by 2025. He is unlikely to be interested and even less likely to get it if he were. I speak of course of the One True Son of the Baseball Marketing God.
Mike Veeck for Commish. Victory or Wreck
I only ask because she's been mentioned twice in this thread, but if Ng's positive press hasn't resulted in her getting a GM job, how is she going to win the commissioners clearing house sweepstakes and its $18,000,000 cash prize?
If the concensus view is that what they are doing wrong is they are not controlling salary escalation and they need to keep costs in check, they will hire a business executive of some sort who has a track record of restraining costs and being hard on labor. Maybe, for example, someone who is an executive with Wal-Mart.
If the concensus view is that what they are doing wrong is they are not marketing the game properly and not reaching a younger demographic, they will hire someone with that expertise. Maybe, for example, someone who is now with a company like Electronic Arts; or someone who has been successful in TV attracting a more youthful audience.
My own feeling is the most important thing baseball needs to tackle is the pace of the game. That's what they are doing wrong. They need to get batters to stay in the batter's box and pitchers to work more quickly. To resolve that problem, I recommend they hire 9.58 as the new commissioner. He'll help speed things up.
Why NOT David Glass? Who better to continue Bud's legacy than one of its most grateful recipients?
obviously
In no particular order, you've got Reinsdorf, Hicks, Loria. Angelos. Rogers, were it a person, would be a lower tier of candidate on this criterion. And I know he's dead now, but the official team website still has his name listed as the current owner, and the list of all-time owners says "-present": Pohlad.
But there's no way he's going to be named to the position, because of his political background and unpopularity. And the only way his unpopularity is going to change before 2012 is if he dies, and that would rule him out for the position.
Actually, now that I think about it...a dead man would be even more perfect for the job.
And The Circle of Life becomes one.
To throw out a similar analogy, alot of people though Scientology would fall apart when L. Ron Hubbard died, but it turns out that profitable cults have staying power.
Seems like they need him to take any risks. Of course, maybe things would be different if he left permanently.
Yeah with Jobs only gone temporarily the company might take a more caretaking-type of position (refining, upgrading, tweaking products not ####### stuff up etc,) rather than embracing a new radical direction that would happen if Jobs quit permanently.
I would very surprised if bud by the time he leaves, hasn't already groomed a successor, a man who prided himself on owner unity is not going to leave a potentially dangerous power vacuum.
My wild guess is that it's going to be an MLB Company man.
Wouldn't there be practical problems with a comissioner that turns to stone in sunlight?
We've already had Spike Eckert.
One legitimately interesting thing about Commissioner George W. Bush is that Bush was one of Fay Vincent's biggest supporters and would conceivably be interested in ruling independently. And an ex-Republican president, even if it's W, would have the gravitas to tell the owners to go shove it.
One of the first job survival skills to master is how to tell your employer to go shove it in a polite and deferential way.
Oh, all right! I'll do it.
Do we get to wear epaulets?
Sure, but if Seligula hand picks his successor, I wouldn't be shocked if he did pick Loria. I mean, is there anyone who's been further in Selig's pocket or who's gotten more favors from him?
Except in baseball where players and comissioners are free to tell their employers to shove it.
Selig was a consensus builder not a dictator. Selig never moved unless he got everybody behind the idea.
Well, Scientology is basically a hierarchical organization and the biggest sociopath eventually rose to the top to fill the void despite his relative youth. Plus, for a dead man Hubbard has maintained a phenomenal writing output in the last 23 years so that undoubtedly plays a part in the continuity.
Baseball isn't really hierarchical despite the presence of a commissioner. It's more like 30 huge egos who rarely agree on anything, with a figurehead around to project unity that isn't really there. For all his vaunted interpersonal abilities, I doubt even Selig could have gotten so much support if the owners had done better in negotiations with Miller and Fehr over the preceding decades.
The only good thing about this is that it would cause Brattain to rise from the dead in sheer rage. But as a killer zombie, he probably wouldn't be as funny.
He'd have a lot of fun at press conferences with jokes about brains (and the lack thereof), though.
Asking a Selig family member to succeed?
He's friendly with some of the owners, which I guess is worth something. He's much less qualified than Kim Ng would be, and I consider her nomination here to be something of an inside joke.
Mr. Will wrote, "Genius, said de Gaulle, recalling Bismarck's decision to halt German forces short of Paris in 1870, sometimes consists of knowing when to stop. Genius is not required to recognize that in my replacing Bud Selig, when means now, before more the game's valor, such as it is, is squandered."
Doris Kearns Goodwin, oddly enough, issed a very similar statement: "Being very smart, said a 20th C. French leader, recalling a decision by a 19th C. German chancellor to halt his military's forces outside of Paris in 1870, much of the time includes the knowledge of when to quit. A Harvard professor's brain is not needed to comprehend that in my taking over for Bud Selig, when signifies the present time, before all of baseball's glory, such as it may be, is dissipated."
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