Overseeing two rounds of expansion, and the move of one franchise. (The sole owner to oppose that move: Selig's friend Bush.) Creating interleague play. Selig ticks through the innovations he pushed and how hard he had to work to persuade owners to agree to them: going from two to three divisions in each league, and adding a wild card. Selig also criticizes several of the commissioners who came immediately before him, as well as the players association leaders he felt impeded Major League Baseball from addressing widespread steroid use (more on that in a moment). Perhaps unsurprisingly, Pete Rose does not come off well in this book. "I just couldn't bring myself to look him in the eyes and act happy about what he'd done. "I didn't go to the clubhouse to congratulate him afterward," Selig writes. The book's very first chapter details how pained Selig was to see the surly, steroid-enhanced Barry Bonds break Aaron's career home run record. Now what the f*** do you say?"Ĭursing out the vice president is one of a handful of the type of revealing anecdotes and score-settling passages that typically sell memoirs. "This thing is worse because we agreed to this process and you backed out. "What did you f***ing say to me?" the polite Midwesterner yelled at the vice president. Selig lost his cool when he heard Gore repeat what sounded to Selig like a union talking point. Clinton eventually asked the mediator to recommend a compromise, but when the players union wouldn't accept the findings, Clinton and Gore walked away from the process. President Bill Clinton had urged the owners and players to undergo arbitration with a mediator he appointed. The confrontation came months into the stalemate that wiped out the 1994 World Series. Between the "my friend George" lines and a jaw-dropping scene where the mild-mannered Selig recounts dropping several F-bombs on Vice President Al Gore during a White House meeting at the height of the 1994 baseball strike, it's pretty easy to deduce who Selig voted for in 2000. If you didn't know that Selig and Bush were friends, don't worry - Selig will remind you of that over and over. Much of that is due to the deep love and respect that Selig carries for the game of baseball. But outside of those rare exceptions, Selig's book is about the best memoir you can hope to read from a powerful professional sports insider. It's no Ball Four, the seminal behind-the-scenes, bridge-burning memoir written by former Yankee and Seattle Pilot Jim Bouton. So I was pleasantly surprised to find For The Good Of The Game to be charming, informative and even entertaining. After all, for everything Selig changed in Major League Baseball - and it's a lot! - the main thing people will most likely remember is that he presided over an era tainted by widespread steroid abuse. I remember the angry shrug, the tie-game decision and the cascade of boos and flying objects that immediately followed.Īnd I suppose I expected Selig's new memoir to be the book form of that shrug: a man with the best of intentions and a pure love for baseball, overwhelmed by circumstances beyond his control, and being a little bit defensive and prickly about the whole situation.
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