Bud Selig
Bud Selig
Allan Huber "Bud" Seligis an American baseball executive who currently serves as the Commissioner Emeritus of Baseball. Previously, he served as the ninth Commissioner of Baseball. He initially served as the acting commissioner beginning in 1992 before being named the official commissioner in 1998. Selig oversaw baseball through the 1994 strike, the introduction of the wild card, interleague play, and the merging of the National and American Leagues under the Office of the Commissioner. He was instrumental in organizing the...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionSports Executive
Date of Birth30 July 1934
CityMilwaukee, WI
CountryUnited States of America
It is the start of the season, and I look for this to be the biggest season in Major League Baseball history. I believe we will set an attendance record (this season). The sport has never been more popular, I'm very proud of where we are today, and this should be a remarkable year in terms of both competitive balance and attendance.
The intensity that I feel about this issue is greater today than it has ever been and the time is past due for the Players Association to accept my proposal to eliminate steroids and other performance-enhancing substances from our game.
The intensity has been just remarkable. In the end, the beneficiary of all this will be baseball all over the world. I mean, who knows, long after I'm gone, this event will be big. But more importantly than this event will be big is what it's going to do for baseball, including American baseball.
The issue here was competitive balance, ... I feel this deal clearly deals with that.
They bring enormous baseball experience to the table, ... Their hires and reorganization will allow us to prepare for and handle every situation that arises in the baseball operations area.
They were obviously illegal. It should be a subject of this investigation.
We have to do it right. I can't let any other factors enter into it. Whatever is to be done has to be done very thoroughly and right.
We changed the game more than any decade in the history of the sport and Sandy was in the middle of all of that.
We're very close. Well before the season's over, we should be done. I'm very pleased with that -- a wonderful end to a tough story. This was a situation fraught with a lot of potential problems. It's going to come to an end; we're going to come out of the ownership business. The commissioner will be delighted.
We all know it's critical. We know this hasn't been the best thing.
This was a day many people never thought would happen, ... And there were a lot of moments that there was a lot of justification for that.
Yes, we had some problems. We solved those problems. That's all part of what made it a great year. Record attendance, record revenues, great pennant races, great excitement. By any criteria one wants to use, the sport couldn't have a better year.
Yes, we had some incidents that certainly need to be looked at. So I'm not minimizing them. But do I believe in instant replay? No, I do not, ... Human error is part of our sport.
Yes, we caught quite a bit of heat. But in the end, the only thing that really matters is how did it end? And we ended up with the toughest steroids program in American sports.