“Blind Eye” Bud, wakes up, desperate to re-write his loathsome legacy

After ignoring the use of PEDs in baseball for over a dozen years, “Blind Eye” Bud is suddenly worried about his legacy and has instantaneously transmogrified into Elliot Ness, leader of the PEDeral Bureau of Investigation.

“It has been a long journey, but I look back with enormous pride at what we have been able to accomplish.” [Bud Selig, MLB Commissioner and car salesman]

When Bud became Commissioner in 1992, he admitted he was fully aware that amphetamines were widely used in clubhouses since the mid-1950s and it took him 13 years to propose a ban.

From 1992 and throughout the steroid decades Bud either knew about PEDs and ignored them, because he considered profits for the owners to be more important and “in the best interests of the game,” or he was living on the planet Stupid.

Certainly Bud was not “stupid” when he “stole” the Seattle Pilots and moved them to Milwaukee, or when he flimflammed Montreal with his three-card-Monty game:  “saving the Montreal Expos” and making a nifty profit for MLB and, allegedly, other unidentified private parties, or favoring the Brewers by allegedly “extorting” the 50-year National League franchise in Houston into the American League, so his home team could stay in the NL.

SEATTLE PILOTS HIJACKING

“They met in secret for over a month after the end of the season, and during Game 1 of the World Series, Soriano agreed to sell the [American League expansion team] Pilots to Selig for $10 million to $13 million (depending on the source). Selig would then move the team to Milwaukee and rename it the Brewers [in the AL].”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Milwaukee_Brewers#1969.E2.80.9370:_Roots_in_Seattle

Congress threatened to block the sale, but, when Federal Bankruptcy Referee Sidney Volinn declared the Pilots bankrupt on April 1 – six days before Opening Day [1970], Bud swooped in and stole them for a bargain basement price.

HOUSTON TO AL

Selig owned the AL Brewers from 1970 and then, on November 6, 1997, he had them moved to the National League’s Central Division.  So the Brewers were an AL team for 27 years and have now been a NL team for just 16 years.

When Commissioner Selig decided to restructure the leagues, he chose to uproot the 50-year NL team [Houston], not his former home team with 16 years “seniority” in the National League.  Is it conceivable to imagine that the buyer, Jim Crane, a Houston freight executive, got the impression from Selig that, if he played ball and agreed to move the 50-year NL franchise to the AL, his purchase proposal would be accepted by Bud’s owners? Nah!

"Q:  Why would Selig want to keep his home team in the National League?"

A:  $5 million.  When Bud, as Commissioner, refused to move his home town team, an American League team was worth about $5 million LESS than a National League franchise.

FUN FACT: In 2008 Crane had backed out of a handshake deal to buy the Astros from Drayton McLane, which reportedly angered McLane, who is close to Selig.

1/13/2005

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Major-league owners unanimously approved the $223 million sale of the Milwaukee Brewers on Thursday from the family of commissioner Bud Selig to a group headed by Los Angeles investor Mark Attanasio.

Recall: Selig’s daughter, Wendy Selig-Prieb, took charge of the franchise, when her father became commissioner in 1998. Presumably, to avoid any appearance of favoritism toward his “former” team, Selig did not speak to his daughter from 1998 to 2005.  Ahem…

Oh, what did Bud pay for the team in 1970? $13 million.  Let’s do the math: 223 minus 13…Yup, old Bud pocketed a tidy $210 million profit.

“Blind Eye” Bud was a shill for the sham that was the 1998 home-run derby between the Fraud Twins Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa, a charlatan charade that went curiously undetected; later Selig was forced to endure the mockery of Barry Bonds’ march to the most revered record in U.S. sports with a scowl on his face. He has said privately that he spent many sleepless nights during that time; no doubt weeping crocodile tears, while he counted the millions he drained from MLB.

[Cue maudlin music.]

“It has been a long journey, but I look back with enormous pride at what we have been able to accomplish.”

Recall:  “Baseball was still trying to recover from the baseball strike of 94’ …during the 98’ season and the record number of balls leaving the ball park was good for business inside Major League baseball offices but the commissioner was helping to perpetrate a fraud because while the nation fell in love with McGwire, Sosa, and the homerun Bud Selig knew it was all al lie.”

http://wbaisports.com/articles/86/Blame-Selig-&–B-Writers

During an interview at the All-Star break, “Barrister Bud” even went so far as to refer to the Steroid Era – a period of time in the 1990s and early 2000s that was marred by pervasive steroid use – as “the alleged Steroid Era.”

Selig gave an especially vigorous defense of his handling of MLB’s steroid scandal, declaring, “They’re not a baseball problem … They’re a societal problem,” suggesting that MLB shouldn’t be singled out for failing to prevent the contamination of the game and its records.

Selig proudly listed his accomplishments on the steroid front over the last decade, he was supposedly “stunned” in 2002 by Tom Verducci’s exposé in Sports Illustrated. In that article, the intrepid sports reporter blew the lid off the game’s steroid culture:

“Steroid use, which a decade ago was considered a taboo violated by a few renegade sluggers, is now so rampant in baseball that even pitchers and wispy outfielders are juicing up—and talking openly among themselves about it.”

The article generated a scandal of far more impact on the game than the Black Sox/Joe Jackson Affair, as the myriad of home run records that had just been broken in the late 1990s and early 2000s were irrevocably tainted, along with the players who set them.

”People say, ‘Well, you were slow to react.’ We were not slow to react,” Selig said Monday. ”In fact, I heard that this morning, and it aggravated me all over again.”

Yes, it must be very aggravating to be reminded that you were a disingenuous Commissioner, who caused immeasurable damage to the game that you claim to love.

Bud’s inaction for so long means, either:  he knew, but ignored the problem, or was completely incompetent as Commissioner of Baseball; a car salesman asleep at the wheel.

During a question-and-answer session arranged by Politico, a question was sent by Will, identified as an 8-year-old in Los Angeles. He asked:

"”How old will I be when … you can say that there are no more cheaters in baseball, not one?”"

”Will, this is what I would say to you,” Selig responded.

”I used to object way back when, when people would talk about steroids.

They’re not a baseball problem or a football problem or a basketball problem.

They’re a societal problem.”

Thus, Bud answered an intelligent 8 year-old like a whiny 3 year-old.

Poor, mistreated Baby Bud, nobody ever asked you to take on the problems with steroids [and other PEDs, like amphetamines] throughout society; we were expecting you to deal with it in a timely manner in the game of baseball, when you were an owner and especially when you were the Commissioner.  And that would be a total of 1970 to 2013, or 43 years!

"Bud, you make Rip Van Winkle look like a guy who took a “cat nap.”"

Selig and his sport came late to drug testing, 32 years after it began in earnest at the Olympic Games. But there’s no doubt they are there now.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/columnist/brennan/2013/06/05/major-league-baseball-drug-testing-tony-bosch-bud-selig/2394383/

In his Johnny-come-lately, born again Bud, condemnation of the steroid culture, evident in remarks like those directed at A-Rod recently, Selig can be likened to a Fire Chief with his hose in hand, idly standing by, counting his money, while the house burns to the ground, only to later blame the destruction on the people living in the house.

THIS BUD’S FOR YOU

Sorry, Bud, if you expect to be remembered as a stand-up champion of the game that you claim to love; wake up: you don’t have a legacy to stand on.