Commissioner Of Baseball

I had gone back east to Yale University for a parents' weekend, planning to attend a lecture on student living arrangements. But then the lecture was canceled. At that same hour Friday afternoon, Yale was holding a memorial service for A. Bartlett Giamatti, the late commissioner of baseball and a former president of the university. Only once, in 1987, had I met Giamatti, and then just briefly.

Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig on Monday ruled out increased use of instant replay by umpires to review close calls during the postseason this season. Selig said he discussed the matter with the special committee of managers, management and ownership he appointed in December. "I brought the subject up, as I always do with everybody," Selig said. "I don't get the feeling that there's a lot of support for it, at least their conversations with me. " Baseball instituted video review to assist umpires late in the 2008 season, but limited its use to whether potential home runs are fair and whether the ball went over the fence.

San Francisco Giant player Rick Leach was suspended for 60 days by Fay Vincent, commissioner of baseball, Monday because of a positive drug test. The type of drug was not revealed. Leach, 33, disappeared twice from his teams during the last four seasons. He was ordered to undergo drug counseling after marijuana was found in his hotel room last year. "I am truly sorry this has happened," Leach said in a statement released by the Giants.

As Bud Selig and Donald Fehr, baseball's Capitol Hill Gang, confront another drug drilling from a congressional committee today, there is the background ticking of a contractual and chronological clock. Inevitably -- and sooner rather than later in the context of time already served -- these C-SPAN reruns will feature new and younger leaders at baseball's helm. Is that day imminent?

There was a perception of movement in baseball's stalled collective bargaining talks Tuesday as Commissioner Fay Vincent and the owners' Player Relations Committee suggested revisions in their revenue-sharing proposal.

Saying that resignation and not litigation should be his final act, an embattled Fay Vincent quit Monday after three years as commissioner of baseball rather than face a probable legal fight by team owners to fire him. Vincent had vowed on Aug. 20, "I will not resign--ever." But last Thursday the owners voted, 18-9 with one abstention, urging him to quit, and he decided to resign effective immediately after a weekend of reflection at his vacation home in Harwich Port, Mass.

No one knows whether Kenesaw Mountain Landis, the first commissioner of the game, loved baseball. Could he have named the starting lineup of the 1929 Philadelphia Athletics, complete with batting averages, strikeouts per inning and walks per game? Would he have known how Pie Traynor got his nickname? Did he collect player cards as a kid? Did he even keep score at the games? Did he think of a double play as 6-4-3? Was he even up on the infield-fly rule?

Last weekend, when Johnny Bench, Carl Yastrzemski and Red Schoendienst were inducted into the Hall of Fame, Bowie Kuhn, the former commissioner of baseball, attended a reception for some Hall of Famers in Cooperstown, N.Y. There was a discussion of "Field of Dreams," the film fantasy about baseball. One of the longtime Hall of Fame members said that he hadn't cared for the movie. Kuhn asked him why and got a vague answer.

Bud Selig has a mess on his hands and we're here to help. This is not something simple, like an All-Star game in your hometown, where the teams run out of pitchers after the 11th inning and you can just call it off. A few boos, a couple of days of talk show guys and sarcastic newspaper columnists smacking you down and it is over. No, this is about Barry Bonds. The king of swing.

At a testimonial dinner last week, Peter Ueberroth mentioned that when he was commissioner of baseball, one of the first things office staffers did in the morning was read the eminent sports columnist from a Los Angeles newspaper. He made no mention of any, uh, other individual from this newspaper.

For weeks, Bud Selig seemed unwilling to make a commitment to Barry Bonds, the Giants slugger whose pursuit of baseball's all-time home run record has been shrouded in controversy. Tuesday, the baseball commissioner went all in, traveling to AT&T Park to attend Bonds' games through Friday, a gesture that seemed more a tribute to one of sport's most hallowed records than the man who is on the verge of breaking it.

Bud Selig has a mess on his hands and we're here to help. This is not something simple, like an All-Star game in your hometown, where the teams run out of pitchers after the 11th inning and you can just call it off. A few boos, a couple of days of talk show guys and sarcastic newspaper columnists smacking you down and it is over. No, this is about Barry Bonds. The king of swing.

Bud Selig stood in his corner office overlooking Park Avenue on Thursday afternoon, hands jammed deep into the pockets of his suit pants. Down the hall, George Mitchell and, by Selig's estimate, eight other investigators had begun the process that will probably reveal Barry Bonds, Rafael Palmeiro, Jason Giambi, Jose Canseco, Ken Caminiti and a lot of players like them artificially stoked their careers. OK.

Major League Baseball owners are expected to discuss and, probably, extend the contract of Commissioner Bud Selig during their quarterly meeting in Philadelphia on Aug. 17-18, The Times learned Tuesday. Selig, who turned 70 on Friday, did not return a call to his Milwaukee office, but a high-ranking official confirmed that "a number of clubs think it's appropriate to talk about an extension and likely take action.

As the cloud of illegal steroid use continued to hover over the game, Commissioner Bud Selig said Friday he would like baseball to institute a "zero-tolerance" drug policy similar to the program currently used in the minor leagues.

A day after News Corp. reached an agreement in principle to sell the Dodgers to Boston real estate magnate Frank McCourt for $430 million, Commissioner Bud Selig expressed confidence the deal would be completed despite questions about whether McCourt had sufficient financial backing. "I'm not concerned," Selig said Saturday about the proposed sale that still must be approved in a vote of baseball owners.

The commissioner of baseball sat in the home team's dugout at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium here Monday, watching the American and National League All-Stars take batting practice. The afternoon heat left his shirt soaked with sweat, but his attitude seemed cool and detached. If he is feeling the heat from owners displeased by what they perceive to be an excessive use of authority, he wasn't showing it. Embattled? "How can I be embattled when there's nothing they can do?" Vincent said.

It has probably come to your attention that the baseball owners, the last stand of entrenched royalty on the planet, have gotten rid of their commissioner on the grounds he had exceeded his authority. It's very easy for a commissioner to exceed his authority. He doesn't have any to begin with. But the rulers of the grand old game have the unenviable task of picking a permanent successor. This will not be easy. The requirements are very special.

Bud Selig, buoyed by what he sees as a fresh start for baseball under its eight-month-old collective bargaining agreement, said Thursday he won't be around to negotiate the next labor contract as commissioner. Selig, 67, who was named acting commissioner in 1992, told a group of sports editors that he will not seek a new term when his contract expires at the end of 2006. "When I took the job, I told my wife I'd do it for two to three months, and it has turned into 14 years....

Watching baseball's latest labor conflagration from the safe haven of his Connecticut home, former commissioner Fay Vincent said Thursday he suspects that Commissioner Bud Selig is so committed to "total victory" that he will miss the opportunity that the players union has provided to avoid another work stoppage. "You can't get back 25 years of mistakes all at once," Vincent said, adding that he tried to approach labor relations during his own tenure as an "incrementalist."