In the Best Interests of Baseball? The Revolutionary Reign of Bud Selig [Hardcover]

Andrew Zimbalist (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 10, 2006

"Once again, Andy Zimbalist proves that no one understands the mysterious inner workings of the best game on earth better than he does. With energy, thoughtfulness, and passion, he has parsed the complicated world of baseball and shown how important its business side is to its soul—and its survival."
—Ken Burns

"By looking at baseball from the perspective of the commissioner's office and its many challenges, Professor Zimbalist has been able to use his scholar's eye and his fan's heart to see the game as an ongoing enterprise that needs refreshment. The fair but unsparing portrait of Bud Selig he paints is of a man who is nobody's fool and nobody's tool—and now, those of us who love the game need him to start the rally that will restore baseball in America's esteem."
—Scott Simon, host of NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday and author of Jackie Robinson and the Integration of Baseball and Home and Away: Memoir of a Fan

"Baseball books, like the game itself, are often replete with errors. But Andrew Zimbalist has written a carefully researched yet lively review of the record of the nine commissioners that is both fair and accurate. It is long overdue and a superb read."
—Fay Vincent, former commissioner of baseball

"Tremendously enjoyable and a must-read for baseball fans. Guaranteed to raise the level of discourse on sports-talk radio."
—Jim Bouton, former 20-game winning pitcher for the Yankees and author of Ball Four

"Andrew Zimbalist has done a very credible, eminently readable, and engaging job describing MLB's commissioners, particularly Bud Selig, who easily has become the most significant figure in baseball in decades. While Selig will not necessarily share all of Zimbalist's views about the game, In the Best Interests of Baseball? has thoughtfully, and perhaps uniquely, tracked many of the thorny issues that Selig confronted during baseball's new golden era."
—John Moores, owner of the Padres and member of MLB's Executive Council

"I always thought Yogi Berra was the wisest source on baseball, but Zimbalist has hit a grand slam here."
—Tom Werner, owner of the Red Sox and former owner of the Padres

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Since 1992, Major League Baseball's owners have adopted a revenue sharing program, realigned their leagues, restructured the playoffs and put aside some of the bitter conflicts that hampered efforts to build a fan base and deal with a well-organized players union. Credit (or blame, depending) for these changes largely belongs to baseball commissioner Bud Selig. As Zimbalist, an economist at Smith College and a leading sports-business authority, argues persuasively, Selig's consensus-building leadership style and status as (now former) owner of the Milwaukee Brewers made it possible for him to drag the most hidebound of sports into the modern era. Zimbalist applies his considerable knowledge to explanations of financial issues that go underreported by mainstream media: the benefits and flaws in baseball's revenue sharing plan, the machinations behind several franchise sales, the hidden tax implications of some of baseball's business practices and some intriguing solutions to the money gap between large- and small-city teams. Zimbalist's treatment of Selig is even-handed, though he takes a harder line when discussing Zelig's conflicts of interest (in his dual role as team owner and commissioner) and describing the ways Selig used his power to help cronies and punish owners who failed to toe the line. Readers expecting a successor to Helyar's Lords of the Realm will be disappointed-Zimbalist is an economist, not a storyteller. Still, this book is a must-read for anyone who is interested in the way the game has been run during an era of considerable upheaval.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

While this book's provocative title might lead the reader to believe that Bud Selig is the wrongheaded, compromised commissioner of Major League Baseball he often seems to be, author Zimbalist argues, not unconvincingly, that Selig's 14-year tenure has been spectacularly successful, if primarily on financial terms. Clearly, some of the success has been dumb luck--for example, the emergence of scintillating players like Barry Bonds, Ichiro, and Randy Johnson--but Zimbalist, a sports columnist and economics professor, also shows Selig to be a consummate diplomat among his fellow owners and an advocate for players (there have been no player strikes in baseball since 1994). Zimbalist also argues that Selig effectively metes out justice and stays open to ideas that spark fan interest, such as the wild-card races. In addition to analyzing Selig's performance, the text also places his reign in the context of the commissioners who preceded him. For those who follow the often-depressing business of baseball, this makes thought-provoking reading. Alan Moores
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 250 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1st edition (March 10, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471735337
• ISBN-13: 978-0471735335
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,699,613 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Why you should read this book, May 29, 2006

By 

Stefan Szymanski - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: In the Best Interests of Baseball? The Revolutionary Reign of Bud Selig (Hardcover)

Bud Selig has effectively been baseball's commissioner for fifteen controversy packed years (think: strike, revenue sharing, blue ribbon panel on competitive balance, luxury tax, contraction plan, steroids, eclipse by football as the national pastime...). During this period the most incisive writer on baseball's organisational and economic woes has been Andy Zimbalist. Zimbalist has also been one of Selig's harshest critics (read any of his work and you will never find the word "mis-step" far from Selig's name). So don't you want to know what happened when Selig called in Zimbalist for fireside chat?

This book not only gives us a profound insight into both sides of this story, it also does the useful job of setting it in context. There can be few positions in the world of sport where a figure is burdened with such high expectations but has so little "wiggle room", as Zimbalist puts it. The book details the historical evolution of the commissioner and ends up crediting Selig with the re-invention of the position as conciliator-in-chief.

How sports leagues manage themselves is a vital issue for the fans and for the future of the game. Reading this will get you bang up-to-date with what is going on right now.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Finding The Worms In The Apple Of Baseball, December 22, 2006

By 

Bill Slocum (Norwalk, CT USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: In the Best Interests of Baseball? The Revolutionary Reign of Bud Selig (Hardcover)

Baseball may look pretty on the surface, but it stinks underneath, a scam perpetuated by generations of greedy, myopic owners and the stooges they make their commissioners. That's one way to describe the thesis of this 2006 book by noted sports labor scholar Andrew Zimbalist.

It's a bold thesis with more than a grain of truth behind it; a tack one might expect from a labor guy, but Zimbalist knows his facts. Too bad the book itself is such a boring, repetitive mess, done in largely by its supposed coup, Zimbalist's interview with baseball's current Dark Lord, Bud Selig, who seems to successfully schmooze Zimbalist from seeing his thesis out to its grisly end.

Did Selig fool the state of Wisconsin into building him a stadium on the public dime by falsely claiming he would make his Brewers into a competitive franchise once again? Zimbalist marshals the facts to say Selig spoke from both sides of his mouth, but he doesn't come out and say it. That collusion thing the owners did in the 1980s, cheating free agent players of open-market opportunities? Commissioner Peter Uebberoth was the bad guy there; Selig was just taking orders. That cancelled World Series? Steroids?

"Selig might have acted more aggressively, more consistently, and more persuasively than he did," Zimbalist writes. "However, arguing that his actions were short of ideal is different from arguing that his actions were wrong or devious."

Too bad none of Selig's predecessors get off so lightly. Ford Frick may have seen baseball prosper during his time as commissioner, from 1951 to 1965, but he carried water for his racist bosses and lacked vision. Bowie Kuhn (1969-84) was a sanctimonious fraud. Even Happy Chandler (1945-51), widely praised for his role in breaking baseball's color barrier, had an "unrealistic and grandiose perception of his role" that perpetuated his downfall.

None of those guys talked to Zimbalist. Selig did, and Zimbalist found him gentlemanly. So in taking on the institution of baseball, this iconoclast takes pains to speak well of the man at the center of the whole thing, the wizard behind the curtain.

Apparently Selig resented Zimbalist's book anyway, probably because baseball in its present state can bear little scrutiny, and Zimbalist, in his back-handed way, manages to shed some serious light on what's wrong with the game, like small-market teams that live off of revenue-sharing while fielding weak, cheap teams.

But that's only half of Zimbalist's scattershot book, which starts with brief, sometimes amusing, often acid takes on the tenures of each of Selig's predecessors. A core conceit of Zimbalist's book is that these were hollow men down the line, pretending to serve the game and its fans while working exclusively for the owners. It's a point he keeps making again and again, so that you notice how much plummier he gets when it comes time to talk about Selig.

Zimbalist fails to carry the lessons of Selig's predecessors to that of Selig himself, except to observe that Selig is a good consensus-builder but beholden to the greedy owners. Is Selig really part of the problem? Zimbalist doesn't say one way or another, he just closes by noting "the tasks ahead are as challenging as those that came before," an appropriately mealy-mouthed ending to a book that lacks the courage of its author's convictions.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Giving the Devil His Due, June 23, 2006

By 

John Thorn "baseball writer" (Kingston, NY USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: In the Best Interests of Baseball? The Revolutionary Reign of Bud Selig (Hardcover)

Andrew Zimbalist appreciates better than anyone writing today that baseball is too much of a game to be a business and too much of a business to be a game. Bud Selig understands this dilemma too, and has walked the tightrope that is his lot better than anyone (except Zimbalist, in this fine book) has given him credit for. Symbolically an ombudsman for the game and the fans, Selig is nonetheless the employee of the owners and ignores that fact at his peril, as several of his predecessors found.

After years of faulting the commissioner's decisions and indecisions, the author now gives him the high marks he deserves for restoring the game to vitality and prosperity, despite owner handwringing that would lead one to think otherwise. Zimbalist is a consummate and impeccably credentialed outsider, and this splendid book is the real deal. Those who are determined to have Selig's head on a stick will be disappointed; rational baseball fans will rejoice in this tough but fair view of a decent man in a thankless job.

As to the historical overview of the commissionership, far from being warmed-over coals, much of this comes as news even to one expected to know a thing or two about baseball, and all of it is extended with fresh perspective. There is no one I'd rather read on the double helix of baseball and business.