Bud Selig, the 9th Commissioner of Major League Baseball, is officially out of office with former MLB COO Rob Manfred taking over on Sunday. With that in mind, we thought it would be a great time to look back on the ways Selig altered the game during his 23-season tenure as commish with the 5 Biggest Changes in Baseball Under Exiting Commissioner Bud Selig.
5. Realigning MLB's division system
New rivaliries. More playoff bids. We'll get into the Wild Card system below, but the move to increase from four to six divisions has added a more logical geographical alignment to the divisions while allowing for more balanced scheduling. Historic rivalries such as Yankees/Red Sox and Giants/Dodgers remained intact, but the new divisional system also allowed for other rivalries to either grow or intensify with more meetings between teams.
4. Expanding from 26 to 30 teams
Four teams were born during Selig's time as MLB Commissioner: the Florida/Miami Marlins and Colorado Rockies (1993), along with the Arizona Diamondbacks and Tampa Bay [Devil] Rays (1998). Selig's efforts to bring Major League Baseball to more of America's top markets has been a success, with each team capturing at least one pennant in this histories and with three combined World Series championships over the past 22 seasons.
3. The Wild Card system
Want a surefire way of ensuring that more baseball cities get to see more meaningful baseball for a longer span of time on the six-month regular-season calendar? Increase the number of playoff teams from four to eight (then ultimately ten). Baseball's playoffs still provide the most exclusive postseason party in all of the four major sports (33.3% of MLB's teams advance compared to the second-place NFL's 37.5%), but the league's 30 teams still reap the benefits of more packed houses and increased regular-season/postseason television ratings.
And, with games like last year's Kansas City Royals/Oakland A's thrill ride in the AL Wild Card game, who's complaining? (Except, you know, A's fans...)
2. Advancing player/owner relations
The 1994 strike (and the subsequent cancellation of the 1994 World Series) remains a lasting black mark on the game. However, Selig has done more to bridge the divide between the owners and the players than any other commissioner before him, building synergy between the two sides through compromise and mediation. While there are still plenty of points of contention with Selig's handling on many a matter, the game's prolonged labor peace is something to be celebrated.
1. The financial boom
There's plenty of head shaking to be done about baseball executives (most notably, Selig) turning their backs on some of the obvious physical abnormalities of the Steroid (or Asterisk) Era. However, Selig and his office still undeniably altered the entire course of Major League Baseball by turning big business into massive business. Under Selig's 23-season commissionership, MLB's net worth has increased six-fold - from $1.2 billion in 1992 to $7.2 billion in 2014. Major League Baseball, despite those lamenting the death of the game, has never been in a better place to capitalize on its worth and the parity inherent in the game.
Have some other ideas about what may have been left out? Be sure to add them in the comments below!
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