So I see Bud Selig is retiring at the end of next season (2014). He’s been both an interesting and controversial commissioner and it will be fun to see how history treats him. He made a lot of innovations some good some not so good. The All-Star Game as the determining factor in home field for the World Series is a “not so good”. The other two that I want to write about (inter-league play and the wild card) are a more mixed bag.
When the wildcard was first proposed, I had conflicting feelings. Frankly, I liked the idea of creating three division and adding a fourth team. It made for a more interesting playoff. On the other hand, the idea that after 162 games you got a chance at winning the World Series without finishing first bothered me. Well, I got that wrong. The last several years have been exciting down to the last weekend. Why? Mainly because the wildcard was still being determined and out of 15 games, two or three (four this year) still mattered. The division titles are determined, although it came down to the final Friday for St. Louis to clinch the National League Central, but the wildcards are still up for grabs. Well, at least the American League is up for grabs. The NL is playing for home field which isn’t exactly the same, but still makes the game interesting. In the AL there are three teams playing for two positions. So, Bud, I got that one wrong. The wildcard is exciting enough to make a purist admit he made a mistake doubting the idea.
The other issue was inter-league play. Here I really liked the idea. I wanted to see the Cubs play the White Sox in games that mattered. I wanted the Dodgers to face the Angels, the Yankees to take on the Mets, the Cardinals to drive up I-70 to face the Royals. So I was happy it was going to happen. Now they’ve more or less spoiled it by making it an everyday occurrence. Oh, boy, oh, boy the Rockies are playing the Red Sox. Do you really care? I like that they evened up the leagues (15 each) but that necessitated an everyday inter-league game. Too much, Bud, too much.
Tags: Bud Selig
Verdun2's Blog 
September 28, 2013 at 10:13 am
Completely agree with you on both counts, but I think Selig will end up being mostly associated with the steroid era, for better or for worse. Kind of like L.B.J. with Vietnam, it will overshadow many of his other accomplishments.