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| Milwaukee Lakefront Skyline |
After six years without a commissioner, baseball will
finally elect one Thursday, and the lone candidate is the man who said early
and often that he didn't want the job -- Milwaukee Brewers owner Bud Selig.
"I really meant that,'' Selig said Monday. "I love
what I was doing. Many had said to me they wanted me to stay in some capacity.
We argued. The rest is history.''
So Allan Huber Selig won't be acting commissioner for
life, after all. Having watched Bowie Kuhn, Peter Ueberroth and Fay
Vincent enrage owners with controversial actions, and A. Bartlett Giamatti
become bogged down with Pete Rose, Selig decided the best decisions are often
no decisions. He preferred to wait for a consensus to develop. Sometimes, that
meant problems festered and opportunities were lost.
"I don't accept that criticism,'' he said. "When you
look back at the last five years, it's been the most active five years in
baseball history.''
Going into Thursday's owners meeting in Chicago, he
was still avoiding direct questions regarding why he changed his mind about the
job.
"The stakes today are clearly higher than they've
ever been,'' he said. "You're better off trying to develop an understanding in
people, so when you get to a meeting, they understand the issue. I understand
it when people say it takes too long -- I'm an impatient person myself. But
times are different. People have a lot at stake. For people to think you can
come in and arbitrarily make a decision -- you can't.''
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