On Deck with Commissioner Bud Selig

Onward/Upward Bud

Warming Up for July 10 MLB All-Star Game in Kansas City!

In 1982, as a wandering neophyte lost in a fascinating and not-too-unfriendly world, I did research for consulting firm CTM to develop something wild called "SSN, the SuperSportsNetwork."

In those days of proliferating cable networks, SSN was to be a confederated joint venture of MLB team owners that would satellite-deliver a program of out-of-market baseball games to cable subscribers: you'd see your home team all season long except on nights when they played at home and had not sold out the park; on those nights you'd tap the exchange and receive the best game from around the league.

We got 23 of the 26 owner groups to convene at the O'Hare Hilton for a huge confab - two or three folks from each team.  The Cubs (WGN), Braves (WTBS) and Mets (WOR) had already cast their lot with new "cable superstations" and would not/could not participate.

Why HIM?  Why not ME ???

2008 MLB All-Star Game - Bud and SJP at Yankee Stadium (4-3 A.L.)

Well, I've worked in finance and television, and had unhealthy immersion in politics and academia - all rife with big, needy, overblown egos - but never have I been in a room with more blustering, braying, domineering jackasses at one time (well, I attended a U.N. General Assembly proceeding once, but that's another story).  Many of the club owners were also very charming in a back-slapping way, but every single one of these grand-standers was cruelly suspicious of his confreres.

The meeting was a riot.  My glamorous job?  Running laps of the giant horseshoe table where the 65 primo donno participants were seated, and handing out papers.

Beer Keg Swings Bat - COOL!

Oy!  One character who was well-behaved, and lingered late to chew the fat with my boss Bob Schmidt, was Milwaukee Brewers owner (later to become MLB Commissioner) Bud Selig. He was genuinely interested in the proposition, and would visit us in McLean VA later that year following the Brewers' heroic October appearance in the "Suds Series" (Brewers lost in seven).

As we swept up the room and prepared to vacate for a late plane back east, I spotted Bud pull a bright white baseball from the pocket of his brown corduroy suit jacket, take a Bic pen right out of Bob's shirt pocket, and scribble his autograph: "Good luck, Bob! Bud Selig"

The ball occupied a place of honor on Bob's desk and I admired it until something else happened to it...

to be continued.