Q: Is bringing the All-Star Game to San Francisco after the 2006 game in Pittsburgh a departure in policy
of having an AL city followed by NL city?
BUD SELIG: I'm going to alternate it in the future
because I think it's fair. I love the "This Time It Counts" and I'm sure
we'll get into it at some point. But it's only fair to both leagues.
Pittsburgh needed to have the game last year and San Francisco wanted it
this year and next year it's Yankee Stadium in New York and then after that
it's St. Louis and then we'll alternate American and National.
Q: Commissioner, I've heard you talk about today being the golden age of
baseball; can you explain what you mean by that?
BUD SELIG: I have. The golden age or golden era of baseball, as of Sunday
baseball had drawn at the Major League level, 41,600,000 people. That's four to five percent ahead of last year, which was the record year. The Minor Leagues are going to set an all time attendance record. Back to the Major Leagues for a minute, we will draw well in excess of 76 million people. We are at numbers nobody ever dreamed possible. The television ratings are terrific for all of the local clubs, FOX's ratings are up, ESPN's ratings are up. There's no question by any criteria used, this sport is more popular today than it's ever been. And in October, when you see what we drew for the season, people will be stunned.
Q: Commissioner, some people have
suggested making the World Series a best of nine series. How seriously are
you considering this, and do you think it would happen?
BUD SELIG: Well, they have. I know Scott Boras has made that suggestion.
Right now, we have a long post season, and there are some people that would
like to take the first round 3 to 5 and make it 5 to 7 but we are going to
end up on November 1st and I'm satisfied quite frankly that with seven games the
system is working.
I just got done saying, the sport's never been more popular. People love the wild card. I remember all of the abuse I took about the wild card 13 years ago and now everybody loves it, of course.
So the question being now, do you want to increase anything, and the answer is no. A seven-game World Series is great, and I read the other day, and it made me feel good, Derek Jeter said, "Seven games is long enough. That's a
great series." I agree with Derek. That's right.
Q: So players can give you advice and you listen?
BUD SELIG: I do. I really listen to a lot of people before I make meaningful
decisions, including fans, because often teams, they have the best grasp or
best feel for the situation.
Q: Commissioner, why not use the designated hitter in every
All-Star Game; is there really any reason to have a pitcher bat or have to use
a pinch hitter every time?
BUD SELIG: That's something we've talked a lot about and I think we'll
review that. I think that the use of the DH
probably will get some more people in the game, and so I think that that's
the objective here, each club desperately trying to win now because it gives
them a home field advantage in the World Series. There's something to be
said for that and we'll take a look at that.
Q: Mr. Selig, for the good of the game, baseball needs a
salary cap; when do you think we'll see one; in my lifetime? I'm 60 years
old.
BUD SELIG: Well, we won't see one in my commissionership, I'll say that.
I'm happy with our economic system. I think people sometimes feel that a cap does more than it really does.
Look, what did we try to prove back in the '90s? You want to increase
parity, you wanted to give a lot of teams a chance to win; Detroit has come
back; Cleveland has come back; Milwaukee has come back; Minnesota is still
playing well. We have more competitive balance or parity than ever before.
Why? Because of our economic system. Because we do have revenue sharing, we
do have a luxury tax, we do have all of these things that work now.
So I'm very happy with our economic system. I think it's working
beautifully.
Q: Each year it seems the post season goes later and later,
bringing foul weather into the equation for the most important games of the
year. Are you at all concerned about this trend, and if so, what can be done
about it?
BUD SELIG: Well, I'm always concerned about it, and I've often said that I
would never want to see us play in November, and if the series goes seven
games, that we're going to play on November 1st. But look, we had the rounds of playoffs. We're doing everything we can. The
season ends September 30th. I think October will be a spectacular month. And
you know, oftentimes, I just told the writers, too; I'm sort of an amateur
meteorologist, the weather often in late October is good, if not better than
it is in early to mid October. So I'm not overly concerned about that. It
depends on who gets in the World Series. But we could have teams frankly
playing in warm weather sites where there is no issues. No question, no weather can be worse baseball weather than in April this year, it was brutal.
Q: Is there any chance in the future to see expansion
to even out the leagues?
BUD SELIG: No. We've had enough expansion. We had expansion in '93. We had
expansion in '98, and I think baseball has expanded now. At least as long as
I'm commissioner, I think any further expansion I think would hurt the
sport, as a matter of fact, considerably.
Q: Commissioner, I would like to ask you to
explain why you think giving the team from the All-Star Game winning league
is still a good idea? The team that works hard all year to earn the best
record in baseball should not in my opinion be potentially penalized because
their league's All-Stars lost one game.
BUD SELIG: It's a great rule, and I'll tell you why. We can't wait until
September 30th or October 1st to determine where the World Series is going
to be played. You have thousands of hotel rooms to book and a lot of other
things and right now we take a chance. But at least you know it's going to
be in a league and our people can work on that.
The fact of the matter and I've told people that don't understand the reason
we went to this rule is because in 1993 when Cito Gaston who was the Toronto
manager, in Baltimore didn't put Mike Mussina in, and he got booed, badly. It was
ugly. Then the managers started using everybody. They felt they had to get
everybody in the game. The game lost it's intensity. I had players who would
talk to me, I remember I called Ron Santo one day after Ron had had some
surgery and we had a long talk as we normally do. But he said something that
was interesting. He said, "They don't play the All-Star Game like we used to
play it. I know there's interleague play, I know there's all of these other
things. These guys are gone in the fourth inning. They don't want to play."
Now, what do you see? Players stay right to the end of the game. The
intensity has been tremendous. There's nobody declining. You remember there was a
period, nobody wanted to come and everybody had an excuse; somebody needed
to get a haircut or he needed to do that; he didn't want to play.
Now they want to play, because it means something. That was the objective.
The objective was to restore the intensity to the game. So when you go to
the game tonight, you're going to see a game that both teams want to win.
Q: How long do you plan to continue as commissioner; will you stay on longer
and do you have any specific goals for the end of your term?
BUD SELIG: There are an increasing number of people who seem to believe
that, but I will be done on Dec. 31, 2009, and will have served for 17
years, which will be a long time, so I really do intend to retire at that
point. But I want to really internationalize the sport even more.
In this country we're doing great, new ballparks, both New York teams,
Kansas City, Minnesota are going to redo their ballparks. It's going to be
spectacular. We're doing extremely well and I have some huge attendance
number goals. But now the sport is so popular here, we need to bring it worldwide, and
we're going to do that. So the next World Baseball Classic, we want to play
some games in China, we want to play some games in Japan again next year,
and this sport is growing now at a point that I think long after I'm gone,
people will not recognize how really unbelievably popular it is.
Q: Commissioner, how is Major League Baseball going to handle
the potential Barry Bonds record home run, and are you going to attend?
BUD SELIG: You know, I've said this over and over again. I haven't made a
decision on that score, and won't until what I consider to be the
appropriate time. The Giants will handle it anyway they want, and I
certainly have no problem with that at all and I'll make a decision on that
situation when I think it's appropriate.
Q: When do you anticipate receiving George Mitchell's final
report on the steroid investigation and what is baseball doing regarding the
use of human growth hormone, which I've heard is very difficult to detect?
BUD SELIG: The Mitchell investigation is ongoing. I haven't given the
senator any time frame. They are interviewing thousands of people, going
from club to club and talking to a lot of people.
Let me go back over the steroid thing. We have the toughest steroid testing
program in American sports today. The minor league program is seven years
old. So nobody can say we ignored it. We've banned amphetamines which have
been around for 80 to 100 years.
I just had 15 team doctors and six trainers in my office on June 18th, and
we had Dr. Catlin, who was the leading expert on all of this who is trying
to develop a test for human growth hormone, as well as from our two Olympic
lads. They are very proud of our program. They believe that our program is
as close to gold standard as it can be. They are satisfied that we have
really made progress. They live with these players. They know, they are
medical experts, they know what they are doing. So I'm very confident about
that.
My great frustration is on the human growth hormone, there's no question
about that, and I feel frustrated, but there is no test. There is no test.
No one has a test. The National Football League has joined us in our
testing program at UCLA with Dr. Catlin. I hope that Dr. Catlin
will find a suitable test in the near future.
Q: What are your plans for continuing the
globalization of the sport and will there be games abroad in the future?
BUD SELIG: There will be. Next year we hope we can play in China. I believe
we'll play in Tokyo again. But baseball is getting so popular all around the
world. There's a new baseball league in Israel now. I'm very confident that
even by 2009 when we get to the World Baseball Classic, you will be shocked
at how popular the sport is everywhere. It is just exploding all over the
world.
Q: Commissioner, I was happy to see the draft was finally
televised this year. What were your impressions and will it be an annual
event?
BUD SELIG: I enjoyed doing it immensely and it will be an annual event.
Baseball draft, very meaningful. That's where the great stars come from and
we will televise it.
Q: What steps are you willing to recommend to the owners to
reduce the financial disparity and spending on talent by some clubs which is
promoting an imbalance of parity in this game?
BUD SELIG: Well, I think that's incorrect. We have more parity than ever
before. This sport's never had that much parity. And the fact of the matter
is that Detroit, which lost 119 games three or four years ago, won the
pennant last year and has a wonderful team this year; Cleveland has now come
back and Milwaukee is leading the National League Central. You're seeing
parity all over the place here. We're going to have 350 million of revenue sharing this year. We have a tax on payrolls. One of my frustrations is, I don't think people understand how much the economics of the sport have changed. They have changed
dramatically.
Q: You've always used the phrase "competitive balance" as well as parity.
BUD SELIG: I do. I like competitive balance better because I think it really
shows as a sport how much competitive balance we have between the teams. We
have 30 teams, and I really think what we've done that's what we set out to
do has improved that remarkably.
Q: Commissioner, would you be in favor of
adding another wild card team and creating a first round bye for the team
with the best record? This is coming from a Red Sox fan who owes the
greatest sport moment of his life to the wild card.
BUD SELIG: That's right. The wild card has worked out great. I love the wild
card since I'm the father of the thing. I don't know that we've talked about adding it, but you know what, the
system is working so well right now, I just don't think we want to increase
it at this point in time.
Q: Mr. Commissioner, what is the latest on getting baseball back into the
Olympics in the year 2012?
BUD SELIG: You know, we've done very well internationally. The problem with
the Olympics, not that we don't want to be in it, but we can't stop the
season in the middle of the season for two or three weeks in August or we
would be playing baseball end of December. It's just a practical matter that
has kept us from going into the Olympics, and we certainly have great desire
to be there. But imagine telling all of our fans on August 15th, we'll see
you Labor Day; that would not go over very well.
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