Bud Selig will write his memoirs from UW-Madison

[Patrick425]

JimH5[/b]]I just don't think the Selig ownership group had the resources (or perhaps the foresight) to get the Brewers into a mid-tier revenue situation.

 

I think I was paying about $16 a seat for a good lower grandstand (infield about 8 rows up) partial season ticket. Maybe they didn't have the confidence that the team could grow much beyond that.

 

I don't think they tanked anything or that they weren't trying. I just think they were poor by MLB ownership standards.

 

Exactly. I just don't get all this talk about Selig not caring for the team. Were the people who say this at any of the games during those years. A crowd of 15,000 was considered one of their better crowds. I can see blaming them for not making good draft picks, but for not spending more money on FA's ?? I don't get that, unless you know something about their books at that time than the rest of don't.

[Invader3K]

Selig's critics seem to always conveniently forget that he was the one who pushed for Miller Park to get built. Without a new stadium, the Brewers would have left for Portland or some place else a decade ago.

[billyhallfan]

this sounds awesome, I kind of wish I wasn't graduating in May just so I could take this class...

[1992casey]

I would bet that Bud has a lot to say about the collusion issue. First, it appears he had a big role in creating the mess. Second, it appears that it had a huge effect on the Brewers financial troubles that developed in the 1990s. Keep in mind that the collusion ruling required the Brewers to pay out an amount of money that was greater than some of the team's total annual payrolls at the time. Something like that is impossible to budget for.

[RockCoCougars]

JimH5[/b]]I just don't think the Selig ownership group had the resources (or perhaps the foresight) to get the Brewers into a mid-tier revenue situation.

 

I think I was paying about $16 a seat for a good lower grandstand (infield about 8 rows up) partial season ticket. Maybe they didn't have the confidence that the team could grow much beyond that.

 

I don't think they tanked anything or that they weren't trying. I just think they were poor by MLB ownership standards.

 

Exactly. I just don't get all this talk about Selig not caring for the team. Were the people who say this at any of the games during those years. A crowd of 15,000 was considered one of their better crowds. I can see blaming them for not making good draft picks, but for not spending more money on FA's ?? I don't get that, unless you know something about their books at that time than the rest of don't.

Yes. I went to many more games back in that era than I did today. Selig did care for the team. Ironically, the 'Day Baseball Died' in Milwaukee was the day that Robin got his 3,000 hit. I say that because that was the day Selig was named interim commissioner. Things were ran great to that point, but once Laurel and Wendy got their hooks into things, it became a shoestring operation at best and things started going to seed. The fact is that during 93/94 the team spent little if any money. Look at the exodus of players after '92 and the guys signed to replace them. After '93, Robin retired leaving money on the table, and the 'big' acquisitions were Jody Reed and Brian Harper. After preliminary approval of Miller Park in 95, they did start spending a little money on guys like Ben McDonald and an extension for Eldred (shudder).

[RobertR]

I would bet that Bud has a lot to say about the collusion issue. First, it appears he had a big role in creating the mess. Second, it appears that it had a huge effect on the Brewers financial troubles that developed in the 1990s. Keep in mind that the collusion ruling required the Brewers to pay out an amount of money that was greater than some of the team's total annual payrolls at the time. Something like that is impossible to budget for.

 

I think that's a good call and certainly contributed to the Brewers financial problems of the time. There's a good argument that it's the biggest mistake the owners of MLB ever made. And Selig shares in the blame for that.

 

Is it ok to have a view of Selig that's not pure pro or con? We don't have to be talk radio here.

 

To me the pros outweigh the cons for Selig. He brought the Brewers to Milwaukee and once they outgrew their expansion struggles they were a solid team for about 15 years while he was an active owner. Before 1992, I don't have much bad to say about him other than his haircut and involvement in collusion, the latter being a much worse sin than the former.

 

In some ways, I think Selig got out of active day to day ownership while the getting was good. It's pretty clear that the Brewers farm system and scouting was gutted at about the same time. And, I don't think you can spin Wendy and Laurel's term running the team as anything short of a disaster. I don't necessarily think they tanked 1993 through 1995 on purpose, but they certainly cut back disproportionately to what a team coming off playoff contention should have. Maybe they thought they could win on the cheap, in which case they were either delusional or incompetent, take your pick. I hold Selig's choice of people to succeed him as a major strike against him.

 

The 1994 strike, cancellation of the World Series, and hit baseball took as a result I consider a failure on his part. Ownership got very little out of it, the distrust from collusion was understandable on the players' part, and Selig was a speaking and PR disaster during it and the fallout. Frankly, I think he perjured himself in front of Congress.

 

I have very mixed feelings about public money involved in stadiums and coordinated blackmail by sports teams. Selig was a big part of that.

 

I'm not going to give Selig a pass on the steroid issue, either. If Selig had truly felt strongly about it, he had a bully pulpit to use to address it. He didn't. While I don't think he deserves more blame than anyone else, it's clear that owners, players, press, and fans all deserve blame, he was part of the system and trying to pretend he wasn't after the fact doesn't sit well with me to this day.

 

However, I think he's had a mostly good 21st century. I don't for a second believe that Selig wasn't involved in the choice of Attanasio as owner of the Brewers and that's been a great choice. MLB clearly embraced the internet and that's a plus for Selig. And, for the first time in forever, the relationship between owners and the union seems to be relatively civil. The last 2 CBAs have been relatively non-contentious and we're probably in a golden age of peace and prosperity for the game. And, when the steroid issue finally erupted I think MLB and the Union reached acceptable compromises that have mollified the public. (And I still don't know why football gets a pass.) I think the Mitchell Report is kind of a whitewash of ownership, Selig has been kind of heavy handed in selection of owners, baseball would have been better off if a more critical look had been taken at Loria, McCourt, and Hicks, the Expos final years in Montreal were a bad joke, and there's clearly been some abuses in the revenue sharing system by the likes of the Marlins and Pirates, etc. but the good greatly outweighs the bad.

 

Robert