Selig emerges as the winner
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- January
- 17
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There have been plenty of losers in the wide wake of the Mitchell Report. The list starts with Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte, Miguel Tejada, the MLBPA and other Yankees and Mets.
But there is only one clear winner: Bud Selig.
The commissioner largely got a pass from his buddy the Senator. Then he went to Congress on Tuesday and was patted on the back. Now comes word today that the owners voted unanimously to give him a three-year extension.
Selig made close to $15 million in 2005, so it’s likely that his new deal is probably worth at least $50 million. The message sent by the owners is pretty clear: We care about out revenues, not the steroids scandal.
Everybody is making money in the industry. Almost every team has a new stadium or is building one. MLB’s internet ventures are increasingly profitable. Television ratings are up. Attendance sets records every year. Middle relievers land $19 million deals.
When it comes right down to it, steroids helped the game get where it is today. You can argue that Selig is being rewarded for looking the other way.
Pretty good job if you can get it.
This entry was posted
on Thursday, January 17th, 2008 at 3:01 pm by Peter Abraham.
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Chad Jennings
Sam Borden
BOOOOOO!!!!
Like I said in the last thread, a monkey could be the commissioner and MLB would still rake in $6B per year.
BOOOOOO!!!!
if i ever came in contact with that guy, i’d probably end up in jail…
Sad that Donald Fehr and Roger Clemens are seen as the most evil people and Andy Pettitte and Bud Selig don’t get $hit on more often.
I also hope SAbean gets in trouble if those allegations are true.
An interesting little not from MLB rumors board by the writer/owner of the site and Buster Olney. At least it’s something to make a team stop and reevaluate the talent cost and start asking questions.
“Olney talked to a talent evaluator who wondered whether the Twins might be concerned about Johan Santana’s health. Reduced late-season velocity and less use of his slider could be signs.”
79 million turnstiles and $6 billion in revenue
he still is under the thumb of the MLBPA, the union with the most millionaires in it’s membership in the world.
Besides Selig, there is one other clear winner, George Mitchell.
In fine Haliberton fashion, George Mitchell has profited as a Director of the Red Sox during a period of time when they enjoyed unprecedented success. At the same time,unless you are naive enough to believe Boston had only non-users on their roster, there was steroid and ped use going on with his team.
According to Mitchell’s own report, his General Manager knowingly made acquisitions of at least 2 suspected steroid users.
Mitchell benefited from the steroid era and then charge mlb a reported $20mil to produce a report that will help “fix” the problem.
Dick Cheney would be proud. George Mitchell made money both by benefiting from the problem and “fixing” it.
New Rule: One strike and you are out.
Pete, great post.
McL: Why should Pettitte get s**t upon? For being a great Yankee? For rehabbing? Because you don’t like him?
Drive 4-5, don’t forget that at the same time, he was president of Disney, who also owns, as everyone knows, ESPN and the Angels. He also owns Bug Selig, it appears.
The daily ripping on Pettitte is childish and idiotic.
Please, grow up.
If you can’t handle the fact that athletes look to obtain an edge when competing at high levels, go follow Dancing With The Stars.
Point well taken, GB7.
It’s kind of disgusting that Selig makes more than a lot of the top players in the game. It was amazing when Selig once made note of the salaries in baseball. Selig is a hypocrite in every sense, and baseball needs to get rid of this fool. The NFL showed that you can have a tough leader and still make billions. The idea that Selig — who bumbles CONSTANTLY — has ANYTHING to do with the money being made by baseball is ridiculous.
Politicians are as addicted to outside money as junkies are to heroin. Even as a retired congressman, Mitchell can’t avoid the temptation to mailine greenbacks into his pocket like a junkie mainlining dope into their veins.
I still can’t figure out how so many in congress was able to pat Selig on the back. He was so busy doing it himself. It was only at the end of the session that he finally and begrudgingly decided that maybe he should accept some of the blame. It was hard to tell, because he was choking down the words.
In my experience, pride, and a big raise, usually goeth before a fall.
I think the Commish may be in for a bit of a surprise outside the cushy confines of Congress and the Baseball Moguls Club. There’s the Bonds case and the Clemens lawsuit yet to come. And fan reaction cannot be gauged by what happens in the House of Representatives. Bud better prepare for a severe backlash, at least from NY.
Until the Mitchell fiasco, objective journalists and sportswriters may have had a dislike for Selig but no motivation to dig into the guy and maybe write the real story about steroids, how Selig and the owners are as much if not more to blame than the players. Certainly the unfairness of scapegoating 80 or so players, with Clemens at the top of the heap, is not lost on the real fans or the writers. They know that something is rotten in the State of Denmark.
Selig may be skating now, but I suspect his legacy is going to be toast. Why? How’s this:
“When it comes right down [to] it, steroids helped the game get where it is today. You can argue that Selig is being rewarded for looking the other way.
Pretty good job if you can get it.”
Hardly a heroic epitaph.
The hypocrisy never ceases to amaze me.
regarding how disgusting most of Congress is, in the hearing Rep. Elijah Cummings digressed in his sanctimonious bloviating to point at Orioles owner Peter Angelos and praise him partnering w/some Baltimore anti-steroid group. This of course smells funny, because the Orioles got hit badly by Mitchell’s report, and Congress had just announced investigating Tejada.
So i looked up whether Angelos gives to Cummings’ campaigns – Cummings’ plug for Angelos was that blatant – and sure enough, Angelos contributed the maximum allowable to Cummings’ PAC. See:
http://www.campaignmoney.com/p.....p?cycle=06
i’m sure there’s more dough somewhere, this was just from a quick google to confirm my suspicions of this blatant payback.
the most important witness at the upcoming “steroid hearings” in washington will be our andy pettite. he’s on the spot; he’ll be under oath and obliged to answer some tough questions about a best friend. that’s why his lawyer is doing some fancy dancing at the moment making no committments.
DAS IT!
Funny how Selig’s old team just signed Gagne and Cameron (both named as users)…
They used to say “buy the stock market, it’s at an all time high.” But: “Past performance is no guarantee of future results.” MLB Advanced Media will continue to earn, but baseball ticket sales will not. The two teams in the state of Florida, as much as I root for both of them when they’re not playing the Yankees, are not viable unfortunately. Florida is going broke just like the rest of the country. There’s nothing good about Allan H. “Bud” Selig except 2 things. First, he has enough dirt on these owners to force them to keep him. Second, if he weren’t selected, it might be Bob DuPuy who’s actually worse than Allan H. “Bud.” P.S. Paul Byrd used 1000 units of HGH and over 100 syringes, and only a few months ago silenced the media by telling them his condition was his own “private matter.”