Tag Archives: Bud Selig

Saving Mr. Banks’ Game

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Ernie Banks, who passed away last Friday, helped build a legacy that former Commissioner Bud Selig pissed away. Recovering from the Selig era will require big changes to the game. [Credit: Gannett]

Ernie Banks, who passed away last Fri­day, helped build a lega­cy that for­mer Com­mis­sion­er Bud Selig pissed away. Recov­er­ing from the Selig era will require big changes to the game. [Cred­it: Gannett]

Hall of Famer Ernie Banks, whose prodi­gious tal­ents were over­shad­owed by his irre­press­ible good cheer, passed away last Fri­day, two days before Bud Selig stepped down as base­ball commissioner.

Mr. Banks will be missed.

He was part of the gen­er­a­tion of African-Amer­i­can play­ers who trans­formed the sport dur­ing the 1950s and 1960s, help­ing build a fan base that dete­ri­o­rat­ed dur­ing Selig’s seem­ing­ly inter­minable 23-year tenure.  The task of restor­ing that fan base and sav­ing Mr. Banks’ game now falls to Selig’s suc­ces­sor. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Paying Bud Selig To Go Away

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Bud Selig will retire as baseball commissioner later this month, but not before doing the game irreparable harm. [Credit: CBS Sports]

Bud Selig will retire as base­ball com­mis­sion­er lat­er this month, but not before doing the game irrepara­ble harm. [Cred­it: CBS Sports]

Bud Selig is sched­uled to step down as base­ball com­mis­sion­er lat­er this month, but the efflu­ence of his 23 years of mis­rule con­tin­ues to pol­lute.  On Tues­day, his sludge will flow into Coop­er­stown, when the results of this year’s Hall of Fame bal­lot­ing are announced. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

A Super Bowl on Steroids

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After just two seasons, the Broncos' Von Miller already had failed two drug tests. But he'll be on the field in tonight's Super Bowl because cheating in football, unlike in baseball, doesn't bother us. [Credit: gtbets.eu]

After just two sea­sons, the Bron­cos’ Von Miller already had failed two drug tests. His absence from tonight’s Super Bowl is due to a knee injury, not PED use, because cheat­ing in foot­ball does­n’t seem to both­er us. [Cred­it: gtbets.eu]

A 315 pound man with a body mass index over 36 is con­sid­ered obese, accord­ing to the Nation­al Insti­tutes of Health. But if he can bench press 225 pounds 35 times, jump 32 inch­es ver­ti­cal­ly and run 40 yards in 4.8 sec­onds, he prob­a­bly plays in the NFL. And we prob­a­bly don’t care what he may have put into his body to facil­i­tate such feats.

Tonight an esti­mat­ed 110 mil­lion Amer­i­cans will watch tech­ni­cal­ly obese but sub­lime­ly ath­let­ic men con­tend for foot­ball suprema­cy. Our indif­fer­ence as to how they acquired such strength and ath­leti­cism expos­es a dou­ble stan­dard in our atti­tude toward ath­let­ic achieve­ment. We shame Alex Rodriguez and Lance Arm­strong as cheaters, but we’ll cheer on two teams whose ranks include sev­er­al play­ers who have been caught tak­ing per­for­mance-enhanc­ing drugs (PEDs) and no doubt many oth­ers who have avoid­ed detec­tion. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Why You’ll Watch The Eagles-Bears Game Tonight

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It won't be a Very Brady pre-Christmas game on Sunday night, as NBC will feature Nick Foles and the Eagles against the Bears, rather than Tom Brady and the Patriots vs. the Ravens. [Credit: warroomphilly.com]

It won’t be a Very Brady pre-Christ­mas game on Sun­day night, as NBC will fea­ture Nick Foles and the Eagles against the Bears, rather than Tom Brady and the Patri­ots vs. the Ravens. [Cred­it: warroomphilly.com]

Foot­ball com­bines the two worst things about Amer­i­ca: it is vio­lence punc­tu­at­ed by com­mit­tee meet­ings.  – George Will

The NFL has decid­ed that today’s fea­tured game – played at night dur­ing prime­time, rather than dur­ing the after­noon – will be the Philadel­phia Eagles against the Chica­go Bears. That deci­sion shows just how con­fi­dent the league is that you will watch just about any game they decide to air, a well-ground­ed con­fi­dence built on decades of sol­id leadership.

They could have put the Bal­ti­more-New Eng­land game in the slot.  It pits the reign­ing Super Bowl Cham­pi­on Ravens against Tom Brady and the Patri­ots.  It seems a bet­ter rat­ings-get­ter. Tom Brady is an elite quar­ter­back who has won 3 Super Bowls, done GQ cov­ers and has a super­mod­el wife. Your sis­ter knows who Tom Brady is.  Ask her if she’s heard of Nick Foles.  Or Jay Cut­ler. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

A‑Rod Is Right: Put Selig Under Oath

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Alex Rodriguez wants Bud Selig to answer questions about his role in baseball's long-running steroid scandal. [Credit: philly.com]

Alex Rodriguez wants Bud Selig to answer ques­tions about his role in base­bal­l’s long-run­ning steroid scan­dal. [Cred­it: philly.com]

Alex Rodriguez has a point.

The Yan­kee third base­man, who is appeal­ing his 211-game sus­pen­sion for sus­pect­ed use of per­for­mance-enhanc­ing sub­stances, stormed out of an arbi­tra­tion hear­ing last week and onto a New York sports radio pro­gram, where he deliv­ered a ram­bling, self-serv­ing and emo­tion­al screed against the pro­ceed­ings and the man who ordered his sus­pen­sion, Major League Base­ball Com­mis­sion­er Allan Huber (Bud) Selig. A‑Rod is angry that Selig did not appear at the pro­ceed­ings and go under oath.

A‑Rod is right about one thing: Bud Selig has a lot of explain­ing to do. Con­tin­ue read­ing →