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It’s about time Bud Selig steps down from the helm of the MLB. He’s done a lot of good for the sport, but a lot of questionable things as well. As the ninth Commissioner of MLB, he will be remembered as one of the most instrumental for the contemporary game we know today. Selig has announced that he will retire as the Commissioner at the end of his contract, which is January 2015.
Selig implemented nearly every near policy that we now know of as common practice in baseball, but it wasn’t too long ago that the sport was formatted much differently. As acting Commissioner since 1992, Selig was there for the strike of 1994 and the steroid era of the 90s and early 2000s. He supervised the creation of the Wild Card, the merging of the NL and AL, interleague play and he was a major influence in the creation of the World Baseball Classic. Another one of the biggest changes to the game that he will leave behind will be instant replay in MLB, which will begin in 2014, likely the final part of what will be a lasting legacy.
Many people have criticized him over the years for various reasons. The implementation of the drug policy wasn’t happily adopted by the league at first, and he certainly took a beating during the 1994 strike, but most of the changes he has made have made the sport a better game.
While I’ll never forgive him for allowing the St. Louis Cardinals into the playoffs in 2012, which would subsequently ended Chipper Jones’ farewell tour to glory far too soon, at the end of the day, Selig has made this game better than it ever was before.
Adam Krentz is an Atlanta Braves writer for www.RantSports.com. Follow him on Twitter or add him to your network on Google.
