by Bud Selig
If I got booed while I was giving my speech, well, I certainly didn’t hear it.
I can remember the surreal feeling I got when Jeff Idelson read the wording on my plaque to the large crowd gathered on that warm, sunny day:
“Commissioner from 1992–2015, the first seven years in acting capacity before formally named by unanimous vote of all 30 owners in 1998. Presided over an era of vast change to the game on the field while extending its breadth and depth off it. Fostered an unprecedented stretch of labor peace, introduced three-division play and expanded the postseason. Under his leadership, umpiring was centralized and replay review was established. Celebrated the National Pastime’s pioneering diversity by universally retiring Jackie Robinson’s No. 42. Bridge-builder and devoted fan who returned baseball to Milwaukee before serving as second-longest tenured commissioner.”
That plaque is going to hang in Cooperstown long after I’m around to visit it. That’s the most humbling part of the honor.
When I made that trip to Ford School in the summer of 1958, I was a kid getting started in business with a passion for baseball. I was blessed to meet Carlos Nelson, who would introduce me to Don McMahon and Frank Torre after we had traveled together from Detroit back to Milwaukee. Who knows how my life would have turned out if not for those serendipitous events?
No one who watched me try to hit a curveball would have ever guessed I’d leave a lasting legacy on baseball. But that’s where my life led me, and I couldn’t be any more satisfied and proud how it turned out.
As an owner, an acting commissioner, and then commissioner, I always tried to think about the good of the game, not just my own interests. John Fetzer taught me that lesson early on, and I never forgot it.
Epilogue
THESE DAYS, I’M more or less back to being where I was when my lifelong love affair with baseball began. I’m one of the biggest fans of the game anywhere.
I still work for Major League Baseball, having accepted the job of Commissioner Emeritus in 2015, when Rob Manfred became baseball’s tenth commissioner. I moved out of my thirtieth-floor office and into one that might even be nicer, in an adjacent building. I still spend time on the phone with league officials and some owners, but now that I’m no longer the commissioner, I’m not under nearly the same stress.
I can openly root for the Brewers again, which was a lot of fun when first-time manager Craig Counsell guided them to game 7 of the National League Championship Series. Craig grew up near me, in Whitefish Bay, along the banks of Lake Michigan, and I’ve known him since he was a boy.
His father, John, worked in marketing for me when I owned the Brewers. He even took Craig to St. Louis for the 1982 World Series.
Until the 2018 season, I had never met Christian Yelich, who would win an MVP award after David Stearns, the Brewers’ young general manager, traded for him. But I loved watching him play and discovering he’s just as nice off the field as he is terrific on it. Sue wore a Yelich jersey proudly during October, as big a baseball fan as she ever was, and we entertained both Robin Yount and Bill Bartholomay in our box.
It was great to see how Bill was received. He had been a villain when he moved the Braves to Atlanta, but I told him I could rehab his image here. He’s a really good man and has been a valued friend of mine for more than forty years. It shows that it is short-sighted to hold grudges.
I loved the way it felt to let my emotions show during the postseason—not that I’d ever been very good at hiding them.
You should have seen me after the New York Times published this massive story about how strikeouts are ruining baseball. Some of the facts are indisputable but the conclusions the story reached were wrong.
Hitters have changed, with more of them swinging for the fences than ever, concerned with things like launch angle and exit velocity instead of choking up on the bat and making contact (although some of the smarter hitters—Anthony Rizzo and Joey Votto, to name two—do still choke up like the old-timers).
There was a record total of strikeouts in 2018—41,207, with 153 players striking out at least a hundred times. Henry Aaron never struck out a hundred times, but that was another era.
The most troubling fact about all the strikeouts is that for the first time in history big-leaguers produced more strikeouts than base hits (41,018). There was definitely something to write about, but I was disappointed the story tied the trend to a slight decline in attendance.
Here’s the thing—attendance has been down across the board in pro sports. Even the NFL has experienced a decline as more and more fans choose the experience of watching at home. We’d rather have them in the stadium, for sure, but baseball continues to produce record revenue (as does the NFL).
But this story suggested baseball is somehow in trouble. I’ve read that nonsense since 1958, since Ollie Kuechle used to write it in Milwaukee. I have read that for sixty years—the game is dying, it’s too slow, the next generation won’t love it like older ones, and now this—there are too many strikeouts.
I’ve been hearing it’s too slow since I was a young man, and the issue is usually raised by people who are looking for things they can criticize. When I watch games every night, the drama is good. Fans are into it. The people in the stands are having a great time.
I know people hold baseball to a higher standard than other sports, as Bowie Kuhn said, but I don’t understand how people can keep making the same mistake. They either don’t study history, don’t understand history, or just want to fall for a sensational story.
People are mad about strikeouts, this and that. What about the drama during the season, with all these teams fighting for the playoffs? There were two games played on the Monday after the end of the season to break division ties, for goodness sake. Watching the Brewers overtake the Cubs and hold off the Cardinals, I can assure you things were tense.
I was reading this New York Times piece in my office, then thinking about it, and I remembered what my dad had told me back in the sixties.
“Buddy, what do you care about bringing a baseball team here?” he asked me. “The sport is dying.”
Well, why doesn’t somebody walk out on Wisconsin Avenue, in downtown Milwaukee, and count how many people are walking around in Brewers jerseys? Dying? It’s the opposite, really. Baseball is thriving.
When I was named commissioner in 1998, I put the Brewers into a trust to be run by Wendy. I could not be seen as being partial toward one team, of course, and I worked very hard to make sure there was no bias toward my city or the franchise that I had built. I so feared that criticism that I bent over backward.
The stadium issue was the primary one for Wendy, of course, and once we were in Miller Park in 2001 the franchise was flourishing.
Wendy was running the Brewers the way I did in the early days, trying to build a winner from scouting and player development, and with the help of a wise general manager, Doug Melvin, she laid the groundwork for teams that would go to the postseason.
But in 2004, shortly before I had to deal with a melanoma surgery, Wendy and I decided the time was right to sell the team. It was a difficult decision that was made a lot easier after we got to know the prospective buyer, Mark Attanasio.
Mark has a brilliant mind and, just as important, a kind heart. He is quiet, humble, and understated—values that resonate in a midwestern city such as Milwaukee. He brought a family attitude with him, having his proud father sing the national anthem at Miller Park several times. He not only made the transition graceful and seamless; he has gone on to treat my family and me better than I could have imagined.
We had purchased the team for $10.8 million in 1970 and thirty-five years later sold it for $223 million. That’s solid appreciation on an asset.
The team was never just a business for me, of course. It was my life. That’s why it is so much fun to see the Brewers doing well under Attanasio, Stearns, and Counsell.
You should have seen me when the Brewers hosted the Rockies in the first game of the division
series. I was just as much of a wreck as I was watching us play the Orioles on the last day of 1982, when Don Sutton faced Jim Palmer.
The Brewers were beating the Rockies 2–0 through eight innings, thanks to a home run by Yelich, who I’m loving the same way I loved Molitor and Yount. But the ninth inning started badly, with the Rockies getting hits off Jeremy Jeffress.
It was just like the old days. I couldn’t watch, so I invoked the Seven-Minute Rule.
I got up from my seat and left the suite. I was pacing up and down the hallway behind it. I’d hear the crowd groan and know something bad was happening. I stuck my head in and asked Sue what was going on.
“You’re not going to like it,” she said.
Well, I knew that. Sure enough, the Rockies scored two runs in the ninth to tie it 2–2 and send me to a new level of agony. But I’m happy to report we lived to tell about it.
Yelich scored the winning run in the bottom of the tenth, and the Brewers swept the series. They beat Clayton Kershaw at Miller Park in the start of the NLCS against the Dodgers, and I was like everyone in Milwaukee.
I was dreaming of how sweet it would be to go back to the World Series. But you don’t write the script in baseball, which is why it is always so compelling. The turning point of the series was game 5, when Kershaw got his revenge, and the Dodgers finished it with a 5–1 victory in game 7.
I wasn’t happy heading home that night, no question about that. But I had the sweetest thought a baseball fan can ever have.
Wait till next year.
Acknowledgments
LITTLE I’VE EVER done made me as nervous as the visits to Ed Fitzgerald, Oscar Mayer, Bob Uihlein, and other Milwaukee leaders when I was trying to put together a group to keep Major League Baseball in my hometown. But that blend of hopefulness and anxiety put me on an incredible journey, and in some ways writing this book has been like that trip of a lifetime.
I knew a long time ago I was going to write a book to revisit the people and issues I’ve experienced in almost sixty years in baseball. In my final years as commissioner I was often asked about my plans after leaving the position and always said I’d write a book. It sounded easy, but I’ve learned it’s a challenge to find the right words and a real process to commit to them.
In the end, I’m proud of the work I did to get here. It wouldn’t have been possible without the support of my wife, Sue, and daughters, Wendy, Sari, and Lisa, along with Laurel Prieb, Wendy’s husband.
Beyond my family, many others were essential to this project, beginning with Rich Levin, Richard Justice, and Charles Steinberg. They believed I should tell my story, and got the ball rolling in a process that would last more than four years. Tom Haudricourt, a treasure as Milwaukee’s leading baseball writer, helped in many ways.
Sandy Montag, my agent, was an invaluable resource all the way. He encouraged me from start to finish and connected me to HarperCollins and its remarkable staff. I’ll always be appreciative to Sandy for his support.
My old friends at Major League Baseball were generous with their time and their recollections of many events described in the book. Rob Manfred provided guidance and clarity in many areas, especially the particulars of labor negotiations and the law behind events like the federal mediation in the painful 1994–95 strike. Dan Halem was helpful in regard to the more recent past. Pat Courtney, who succeeded Levin in the difficult PR role while I was commissioner, was with us every step of the way, and I’ll be thankful to him.
My fellow owners and those I worked alongside while commissioner were there when I needed them, as always. Jerry Reinsdorf has always been a true baseball historian, and his encyclopedic knowledge and keen eye made this book better. So too did input from Jim Pohlad, Lew Wolff, Bill Bartholomay, Fred Wilpon, David Glass, Mark Attanasio, and many others.
I’ll always be indebted to the great historian Doris Kearns Goodwin for writing the foreword. It put a lot of pressure on us to live up to her standard.
I owe a lot to my editor at HarperCollins, Matt Harper. He constantly pushed me to dig deeper into my memory and to go to some of the less comfortable places. He was devoted to the task from our first conversations and shaped the book in many ways. I’d also to thank others at HarperCollins, especially Lisa Sharkey, who believed in us from the start. Thanks also to copyeditor, Greg Villepique; senior production editor, David Palmer; publicist, Danielle Bartlett; marketing director, Kaitlin Harri; along with Anna Montague and Maddie Pallari.
I also need to say thanks to Phil’s agent, Gary Morris of the David Black Agency, for supporting the project.
Finally, I couldn’t do what I do without the staff at my Milwaukee office. Thank you, Mary Burns, Charles Hargroves, and Meredith Malone. You guys are the best. Just like the great game of baseball.
Photo Section
Milwaukee is the only home I’ve ever had. This was my graduation photo from Washington High, before I moved on to attend the University of Wisconsin. (Photo courtesy of the Milwaukee Brewers Baseball Club)
Nothing was more rewarding for me than bringing baseball back to Milwaukee after the Braves left. The Brewers lost ninety-seven games in our first season, but we were so excited for 1971 that we printed a gigantic ticket for Opening Day. (Photo courtesy of the Milwaukee Brewers Baseball Club)
County Stadium was my home away from home. I even had an office there when Milwaukee was left without a team. I loved the place. (Photo courtesy of the Milwaukee Brewers Baseball Club)
I was a speedy center fielder as a boy, but I was going to make my legacy running a team, not really stepping into the batter’s box. I always appreciated the guys who could really hit. (Photo courtesy of the Milwaukee Brewers Baseball Club)
I always loved talking baseball with executives. Here, I’m standing next to Frank Lane, who was the first GM I hired for the Brewers, and Harry Dalton, who built the team that won an American League pennant in 1982. (Photo courtesy of the Milwaukee Brewers Baseball Club)
My office at County Stadium was tiny but it was always comfortable for me. I’d peek out its windows to look for cars entering the parking lot in the Brewers’ early days. (Photo courtesy of Wendy Selig)
There was no fancy interview room at County Stadium. We’d just set up a podium right in a locker room when the team had news to share. (Photo courtesy of the Milwaukee Brewers Baseball Club)
I was blessed in having a great partner during most of my time in baseball, my wife, Sue. We married just as the Brewers were getting good, and she enjoyed the lifestyle as much as I did. Here we are enjoying an event with our friends Howard and Judy Gordon. (Photo courtesy of the Milwaukee Brewers Baseball Club)
I loved the time before games, swapping stories with managers, hitting coaches, and players at the batting cage. (Photo courtesy of the Milwaukee Brewers Baseball Club)
I received the B’nai B’rith Distinguished Humanitarian Award in 2013. But this earlier honor, in the early 1980s, might have been sweeter because I shared it with my mother, Marie, in addition to my daughters, Sari and Wendy. (Photo courtesy of Wendy Selig)
The Brewers’ early seasons were rough, but Ed Fitzgerald, my partner, and GM Frank Lane worked to lay a strong foundation. (Photo courtesy of the Milwaukee Brewers Baseball Club)
We enjoyed great local support in the early years of our franchise. Milwaukee was proud of its team and showed it, like at this event, where I was seated next to Milwaukee’s longest-serving mayor, Henry Maier. (Photo courtesy of the Milwaukee Brewers Baseball Club)
Packer legend Bart Starr, far left, was among those joining me on this occasion. I was freezing in the stands at Lambeau Field when he followed Jerry Kramer’s block into the end zone in the Ice Bowl game against the Cowboys. (Photo courtesy of the Milwaukee Brewers Baseball Club)
I always looked at the Brewers as a business, not a toy, and that meant keeping an eye on all elements of the franchise. (Photo courtesy of the Milwaukee Brewers Baseball Club)
I always loved talking baseball with the
people I met, and people never minded telling me what was on their minds, especially about the Brewers. (Photo courtesy of the Milwaukee Brewers Baseball Club)
As much as I loved County Stadium, Miller Park was essential for the long-term survival of baseball in Milwaukee. That’s why I was thrilled at the groundbreaking for Miller Park in November, 1996. (Photo courtesy of the Milwaukee Brewers Baseball Club)
Photographers always wanted to put bats in my hands. Here’s another one of those shots from County Stadium. (Photo courtesy of the Milwaukee Brewers Baseball Club)
The outlook for building a new stadium in Milwaukee was looking bleak in June, 1996, when I held a news conference outside County Stadium. Fans understood I was fighting to preserve the future of their team. (Photo courtesy of the Milwaukee Brewers Baseball Club)
My box at County Stadium was anything but fancy but it gave me a great view to so many games. Here I’m leaning on the loge outside the box, where I paced during the wild emotional swings of games. (Photo courtesy of the Milwaukee Brewers Baseball Club)
On the field with Paul Molitor, aka “Molly” and “The Ignitor.” George Bamberger spotted his talent from his first spring training. (Photo courtesy of the Milwaukee Brewers Baseball Club)
When Miller Park opened on April 6, 2001, I threw out the ceremonial first pitch, followed by President George W. Bush. That was quite a night. (Photo courtesy of the Milwaukee Brewers Baseball Club)