NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. _ Bud Selig, who evolved from a young, avid fan to founding owner of the Milwaukee Brewers to consensus-building commissioner during a life devoted to baseball, reached the pinnacle of the game Sunday night.
A source close to Major League Baseball said Selig was elected for induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., by the newly created Today's Game Era Committee on the eve of the annual winter meetings at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center. The announcement will be made official on the MLB Network.
Selig will be inducted in Cooperstown on July 30, 2017 along with any former players elected by the Baseball Writers Association of America, to be announced on Jan. 18.
Selig, 82, was elected in his first time on the ballot of the new Today's Game Era Committee, one of four electoral groups formed out of the dissolved Veterans Committee. Candidates from 1988 through the present included former executives, players, managers and umpires with at least 10 years in the game.
The committee figured to be favorable to Selig because it included current and former team owners such as Bill DeWitt (Cardinals), David Glass (Royals), Andy MacPhail (Phillies), Kevin Towers (Reds) and Paul Beeston (Blue Jays), a former executive in the commissioner's office, as well as retired executive Pat Gillick and Hall of Fame manager Bobby Cox.
The group also included six Hall of Fame players, including Don Sutton, who pitched for Selig's 1982 World Series club in Milwaukee, as well as veteran media members Bill Center, Steve Hirdt and Tim Kurkjian, all of whom understood the importance of Selig's stewardship as commissioner.
Upon retiring in January 2015, Selig became the game's first commissioner emeritus with an announced five-year contract. That role allowed him to be eligible for the Hall of Fame immediately rather than having to wait the requisite five years.
Though Selig keeps his baseball business close to the vest, rest assured he has been a valued advisor to commissioner Rob Manfred, his former lieutenant. It was Selig who paved the way for the extended labor peace that will stretch to 26 years with the new collective bargaining agreement completed Wednesday night, shortly before the old one expired.
"I'm very proud of Rob," said Selig, who campaigned vigorously for Manfred to replace him. "I think he's doing very well. The transition has been seamless. Everybody raves about how smoothly that went, of which I'm very proud."
Beyond the MLB duties conducted from his new downtown office in the 833 East building, Selig has taken on an aggressive teaching role. Every Tuesday, he travels to Madison, Wis., where he teaches a history course entitled "Baseball in American Society, 1945-present."
Selig also will continue teaching a sports law course at Marquette University on Wednesdays in 2017, something he has done for six years. And, as if that weren't enough, he agreed to teach another sports law course at Arizona State on Fridays, necessitating long weekend trips to Phoenix on a regular basis.
"It keeps me busy but I really love it," Selig said. "I'm also trying to write a book, so I guess I do have a lot going on."
Selig is revered by baseball fans in Milwaukee for leading the charge to buy the Brewers out of bankruptcy in Seattle in 1970 and bringing major league baseball back to the city after the Braves bolted for Atlanta five years earlier. He then assured the Brewers would not also leave by spearheading the campaign to build Miller Park, which opened in 2001 and has been a resounding success.
But Selig's Hall of Fame candidacy centered on his role as the game's ninth commissioner, a job he took on an interim basis in 1992 and then full-time six years later. The early years were tough, including a bitter labor war that led to the cancellation of the 1994 World Series.
There was also the so-called "Steroid Era" in which players cheated the system with rampant use of performance-enhancing drugs, skewing the game's records and statistics.
With doggedness and a unique ability to build consensus among once-divided team owners, Selig moved baseball out of the work-stoppage wilderness by bridging labor gaps between management and players. Though criticized by being too slow to act, he also helped achieve the most comprehensive drug-testing policy in professional sports.
Achieving labor peace and prosecuting PED use allowed innovations enacted under Selig to take full effect, including increased revenue sharing, expanded playoffs including wild-card berths, interleague play, realignment, the World Baseball Classic, instant replay, 22 new ballparks, competitive balance and vast economic growth, including the games ultra-prosperous online wing known as MLB Advanced Media.
MLB went from annual revenues of around $1 billion when Selig became commissioner to nearly $10 billion at present. Asked how to put it all in perspective, he pointed to labor peace as the fulcrum.
"We did a lot of things but that's probably right at the top because a lot of the other stuff can't happen without it," said Selig, who convinced me-first owners that as long as they were at each other's throats nothing would be accomplished.
Ending the long-running labor feuds that shut down the game far too often and stymied its growth remains Selig's primary legacy. In that regard, it was only fitting that his Hall of Fame election came only four days after the players union and management went down to the wire to keep the gravy train rolling with a new CBA.
