As I try to get back into this whole daily blogging thing, here are my thoughts in list form. Tomorrow we'll see if I remember how to write a cohesive post with paragraphs and all that.

1. Recently, three years before the term of his current contract is set to end, Bud Selig indicated that he planned to retire at the end of that term, after the 2012 season.
   
   
2. In 2006, three years before the term of his current contract was set to end, Bud Selig indicated that he planned to retire at the end of that term, after the 2009 season.
   
   
3. In April 2003 (according to the article linked in 2.), Bud Selig said he planned to retire in 2006.  In 2006, though, he assured everyone he really meant it this time -- he was going to be 75 in 2009 and wanted to write a book.  No one could change his mind.
   
   
4. They changed Bud Selig's mind.  Now he says he really, really means it, because he's going to be 78 and wants to write a book, and he's already refused attempts by various owners to change his mind.
   
   
5. Bud Selig will be the Commissioner of Major League Baseball until he dies.
   
   
6. Bud Selig may not actually be human.  Bud Selig may be some kind of unholy demon sent to torment us.  Bud Selig may be the Commmissioner of Major League Baseball until our great-great-grandchildren die.
   
   
7. In my opinion, Bud Selig has been wrong about every meaningful thing he has done as commissioner.  Interleague play is boring and leads to phony rivalries and unfair schedules.  The Wildcard in a league with an unbalanced schedule is fundamentally unfair.  The draft is a mess.  The 2002 All-Star Game was a farce, and Selig's attempted "fix," the whole "This One Counts" garbage, is a joke.
   
   
8. Bud Selig isn't everything that's wrong with baseball, but he's had a hand in, or at the very least has failed to take advantage of opportunities to fix or alleviate, everything that's wrong with baseball.  He owned the Milwaukee Brewers and took part in the owners' illegal (and disgusting) collusion scheme in the late 1980s. He presided over all of baseball when the rich babies fought with the even richer babies and made the World Series fail to happen for the first time since Teddy Roosevelt was President. In my mind, Selig, his cronies, and the owners on one hand and the heads of the Players' Association on the other hand each own exactly half of the blame for the whole PED mess. He (like almost all of our leaders these days) is incapable of admitting his mistakes, going so far as to invent obviously phony supporters for his laughably idiotic All-Star Game/World-Series-home-field-advantage scheme. He refuses to even consider instant replay in the face of a blatantly obvious and embarrassing-to-the-game need for change. And so on.
   
   
9. I realize I'm probably not being entirely fair to Bud Selig. You can probably argue that he's done some things right. People seem to like the Wildcard, for instance (and I'd be fine with the Wildcard if the various contestants all got to play schedules of more or less equal strengths -- it's the unbalanced schedule that makes it a travesty). But you know, a person can get something right every now and then and still be utterly incompetent.
   
   
10. Also, I realize that the owners have complete control over who the commissioner is, and whoever gets the job will probably be quite a bit like Bud Selig. That is to say, at least, he'll do more or less what the owners want him to do.
    
    
11. If the Bud Selig Era ever does come to an end, I'll rejoice nonetheless, for at least three reasons.
    
    
12. First, Bud Selig is wrong in ways that are not obviously connected to the owners' pocketbooks. Looking into the feasibility of expanded instant replay, for instance, is a minimal expense for a business like MLB, and if it is in fact feasible, can significantly improve the public image of the product for relatively little cost. It's Selig's smug obtuseness, not a sense of duty to the owners, that leads him to reject it outright. Similarly, the owners have no financial stake, as far as I can tell, in how home-field advantage for the World Series is determined; that's all Bud being a full-of-himself, can't-admit-he's-wrong buffoon. If we've got to have a puppet, I'd prefer a puppet with a brain.
    
    
13. Second, there's always the chance that, unlike Bud Selig, the next guy might push back a little bit. The owners aren't totally unconstrained in selecting a commish. There's public opinion and image to consider (and I suppose if they go really crazy, Congress can always revoke the antitrust exemption). The next individual they tap cannot, for instance, be another former owner. That just can't happen. He or she has to at least have some appearance of impartiality. While baseball will always be run completely by the club owners -- and you can make a pretty good philosophical case that that's the way it should be -- this one might be better, just a little more "for the good of the game" and a little less "for the good of their bottom lines."  At any rate, it could scarcely be worse.
    
    
14. Finally, Bud Selig, to me, has left a little trail of slime on any and every part of the game his smarmy little hands have touched. He's incessantly, almost compulsively dishonest. To me, it's been great to be a baseball fan in the last 18 years. Great players, vast back-and-forth changes in styles of play, lots of great races and World Series and all that. But the moment you think of it as the Bud Selig Era, a thick layer of grime seems to cover the whole thing. Even if no practical changes are made, it will be great to be rid of that.
    
    
15. Please, Bud Selig, mean it for real this time. That's enough.
    

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