You won’t hear any disappointment from this corner regarding Bud Selig stepping down after the 2012 season. I am not one to throw praise at the “owner’s commissioner” during this difficult period in baseball. To be fair Selig faced the ultimate work stoppage, steroids, the new media revolution, and an economic shift during his tenure. The fact baseball survived is more a testament to what a great product it is rather than anything to do with Selig. He often comes across as someone who capitulates and tries to govern by making everyone happy. There are tons of issues with the sport that most certainly won’t be solved before he departs. The economic disparity is greater than ever, umpiring is a mess, and the coup de grace to his time in office could be another work stoppage in 2011.

I believe answers to future problems can be solved by history. Baseball was once in more trouble than it is now. Owners back in 1919 would take incompetent umpiring over the cloud of the Black Sox scandal. The game almost was aborted before it began and the owners were smart enough to appoint a strong leader to save them from themselves. Kenesaw Mountain Landis served as commissioner for 23 years and helped save baseball from becoming nothing more than another version of the circus. The next commissioner should have more Landis than Selig in them to lead baseball into the future.

Landis was not a perfect commissioner. He reportedly was responsible for prolonging the segregation of the sport thus cheating the fans of the highest level of competition. Despite that he ruled unilaterally and without bias towards the owners. Back then players were treated no better than minimum wage peasants. The most reprehensible of the group was White Sox owner Charles Comiskey. Today the players are handsomely paid, but the fans of the game, the customers, are dragged around like a rag doll. They need someone that is strong enough to act in “the best interest of baseball” and put the owners and MLBPA in their place when necessary. The sport doesn’t need bad owners like Jeffrey Loria, self serving agents killing the “golden goose”, and the cloud of performance enhancing drugs hanging over every player. The fans have been patient, but can you expect it to continue? There are cities like Pittsburgh, Kansas City, Miami, and Oakland that quite possibly could turn away from baseball for good. The game can’t just be the northeast pastime, but must remain America’s pastime. Anyone in the game arrogant enough to believe they can’t kill it is flat out wrong.

I am not foolish enough to believe any commissioner will receive the power that Landis did back in the early twentieth century. The world is a far more sophisticated place. What I want is someone that is strong, honest, and believes in what is right for the game. I am sure Bud Selig is a good man, but he comes across more like a waffling politician than a strong leader. He appears to govern the sport in a committee type approach that often leaves everyone wanting in the end. Sometimes you have to make unpopular decisions to advance the sport. A perfect example of this was the Mitchell Report which turned out to be a way to satisfy Congress, but do very little to address the real issue of performance enhancing drugs. It was the proverbial fence sitting decision.

Baseball needs a leader that is proactive versus reactive. Landis was an independent commissioner at a time when the game needed just that. I believe we are again at a time where the owners need to turn to someone equally as strong and independent. This group can’t be trusted to do the right thing because it appears to be against their DNA. I don’t know who that person is, or if they exist, but I do know the sport is going to need leadership, and lots of it, for us to see the game grow over the next twenty years. Maybe opening the history books can help the owners see their game is at another crossroads. Only a strong independent leader can put these two self centered faction in their place in order for the game to be better in 2032 then Selig’s last year in 2012. They don’t need another Bud Selig, but someone like Kenesaw Mountain Landis.

Tags: Bud Selig, Charles Comiskey, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, Mitchell Report, MLB, MLBPA