Ranking the Major League Baseball Commissioners (Revised)

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The other day, I was at the Media Play at the local mall. While I was at the book section, I came across Fay Vincent's autobiography "The Last Commissioner." Apparently, the book is really intended as a "love note" to the game rather than simply an excuse for Vincent to vent his anger towards anybody who have ever "done him wrong" (namely Pete Rose & Bud Selig).

While Vincent does talk about Pete Rose (in which Vincent goes into detail about the reasons that betting on baseball is wrong), the earthquake at the 1989 World Series, and his resignation (after coming under presure by Selig & the rest of the owners), he also talks about his relationships w/ Bart Giamatti (he even goes into detail, the day that Giamatti died of a heart attack) and the Bush family. Vincent went to the same college as George W. Bush's, who almost became the commissioner after Vincent's ouster in 1992, uncle Bucky.

I heard that the main reason why Fay Vincent resigned was because he got frustrated when the owners wouldn't agree w/ his idea to relign the National League (i.e. the Cardinals, Cubs, Braves, & Reds would switch divisions). Unfortunately, I believe that Vincent's mistake (and the casue of his downfall) was that he under-estimated the owners (he took the "my way or the highway approach to put it in another way). How else can you explain why a puppet like Bud Selig has had the top job for so long as opposed to Vincent?

I really don't believe that Fay Vincent was that bad of a commissioner despite his short-term. After doing some additional reading, I've come to the conclusion that Peter Ueberroth was a far worst commissioner (in terms of doing long term damage to Major League Baseball) than Fay Vincent, Bowie Kuhn, and even to a certain extent, Bud Selig.

Many people don't like Bud Selig really because unlike the past commissioners (Fay Vincent being the last impartial one), he rose to power after being an owner (which in my mind, made the 1994 strike an even worse situation), he has resorted to using certain gimmicks/plans to serve as an immediate band-aid (i.e. Interleague Play, contraction, the winner of the All-Star Game getting home-field advantage in the World Series, getting rid of league presidencies, etc.), and his basically proven to be absolutely incompetent during a crisis (i.e. the 1994 strike and the 2002 All-Star Game debacle).

I believe that Vincent & Bart Giamatti were left to having to clean up much of the mess that Peter Ueberroth made immediately after leaving office prior to the 1989 season. Ueberroth was the mastermind behind collusion during the mid-1980s to early 1990s. Collusion is when owners form a pack and agree to not sign certain free agents as an attempt to keep down salaries.

Ueberroth also instigated the investigation against Pete Rose just before leaving office. Unforunately, Ueberroth, who took over from Bowie Kuhn after the end of the 1984 regular season, quit even though his term wouldn't have been up for another six months. So instead, Bart Giamatti, who unfornately, suddenly died about a week after banning Pete Rose, & Fay Vincent were left to having to finish the job that Ueberroth started. I'm willing to bet that Ueberroth quit rather than finish out his term because he even knew that the Players' Union and/or federal courts were coming after him because of the whole collusion episode.

I especially hate Ueberroth for what he did w/ Major League Baseball's TV package. In late 1988, Ueberroth negotiated a four year, $1.2 billion deal w/ CBS & ESPN. The previous TV rights package (which dated back to 1976) involved NBC carrying Saturday afternoon "games of the week" (w/ Vin Scully, Joe Garagiola, Bob Costas, and Tony Kubek) and ABC having "Monday Night Baseball" (w/ Al Michaels, Jim Palmer, Tim McCarver, Keith Jackson, Howard Cosell, Don Drysdale, and Bob Uecker, just to name a few). NBC & ABC would alternate between who would cover the World Series, LCS, and All-Star Game. In even numbered years for instance, NBC would have the World Series while ABC would have the All-Star Game and both League Championship Series.

Unforunately, when CBS came along in 1990, they institued a "Game of Every Other Week" plan. CBS was obviously more interested in the marquee events like the post-season & All-Star Game (kind of like NBC was when they got back into baseball during the 1990s). CBS eventually lost over a hundred million dollars off of the deal.

Because of CBS' mess, networks were no longer committed to paying MLB huge sums of money for the TV rights. So as a comprise, Major League Baseball created a joint-venture w/ ABC & NBC called "The Baseball Network." TBN was horrific because they waited until the All-Star Game before covering only a hand-full of regionalized regular season games. Even worse, TBN regionalized both the Division Series and League Championship Series (as these particular games were routinely played at the same time a la March Madness). Also, for the first and only time, a single World Series (as was the case in 1995) reverted back and forth between ABC & NBC (as a comprise for the 1994 strike and the fact that both networks wanted out of the deal after the end of the season), who had rights to even numbered games.

Commissioners of Major League Baseball

This is my revised ranking of the commissioners from best to worst:
8. Happy Chandler

7. Ford Frick

6. Bowie Kuhn

5. Bart Giamatti/Fay Vincent

4. Kenesaw Mountain Landis

3. Bud Selig

2. Peter Ueberroth

1. William Eckert

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Commissioners of
Major League Baseball


William Eckert


Bart Giamatti


Happy Chandler


Bowie Kuhn


Ford Frick


Kenesaw Mountain Landis


Bud Selig


Fay Vincent


Peter Ueberroth