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Bush, Selig - Cut from the same cloth?
As President of the United States, George W. Bush controls the most powerful nation in the World; as Commissioner of Major League Baseball (MLB), Bud Selig controls America's pastime. But while both men run two of the greatest innovations of the past 300 years, their track record is far from impressive.
In fact, if their actions and words served as the barometer of their success, one needs to ask why they are in leadership positions in the first place. But upon further examination, one begs the question: are these two men one and the same, or are they simply cut from the same cloth? Or has America lost leaders where it needs them most?
Whatever you do, don't take it from me, examine the facts.
the weak shall inherit the earth
Both men are weak.
Bud Selig loves baseball and would do anything for the sport. But given the business of sports, he has no choice but to bend over and adhere to the wishes and demands of his bosses: franchise owners. As such, he is widely viewed as a pawn, manipulated by wealthier and more powerful owners. Bud's tenure does not represent the first time that baseball owners have propped up a weak and - from fans' perspective - ineffective "leader" in order to pursue their own agendas of getting richer and having more control over the game. But given mass media proliferation and the high stakes nature of pro sports in the 21st century, it certainly is a disastrous tenure by any measurement.
Over in Washington D.C., George Bush, the father, used his connections to get his son into office. Don't kid yourself. Dubya, as we originally affectionately called him, lost money in Big Oil in "West Texas" ("East Texas" is, obviously, that stretch of land just west of Iran). To thank his old pals for landing George W. in office, Bush, the father, ensured that stronger men like Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz would effectively run the show, which they did from Bush Jr's inauguration up to the initial months of the Second Iraq War.
Someone should have pointed out to Bush The Younger that with or without 9/11, neo-conservatives were out to fully usurp the President's power (and mainly away from the State Department) inorder to pursue their Project for the New American Century. The asterix next to this record doesn't have anything to do with men named Maris and Ruth, but rather, with men who have managed to take the World's Greatest Economic Engine and balloon its deficit to a record $480 billion as of last year, according to Congress.
liar, liar pants on fire
Both men have lied.
George W. Bush has admitted to lying before the entire nation in a televised speech by stating those now-famous 16 words: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." It's a good thing that plenty of other men in his administration (and woman for that matter) have also lied; Colin Powell, once a beacon of credibility and integrity, is running up and down the New York City / D.C. corridor with no pants on.
We cencured one President for committing adultery in the Oval Office and impeached the President associated with America's last quagmire for relatively smaller reasons, but America - the greatest country ever created on paper - has failed to censure, let alone impeach, this arguably un-elected President for lying to the nation in order to lead it into War in order to annex another country's natural resources. Let the record show that the last world leader to annex another country was bankrolled by Bush's grandfather, but such analogies are unfair, alas...
Suddenly, Bud Selig seems fairly believable. Oh, wait just a minute. In 2001, MLB owners released the most detailed financial statements ever compiled, showing a loss of $519 million last year, despite record revenues of $3.5 billion. In December of 2001, Congress held hearings to discuss baseball's antitrust exemption.
When Bud testified and defended the numbers, a representative felt the need to state: "Let me remind you, you are under oath." It was not the lie in itself that was so flagrant; Selig was using his now laughed-at claim in order to contract the Minnesota Twins franchise, ensuring a financial windfall for the Twins owner -- and incidentally Bud's former creditor -- Carl Pohlad. Selig, it turned out, had taken out a loan from Twins owner Carl Pohlad, blatantly violating the rules that he was chosen to commission. But alas, no one seemed to object.
As Sports Illustrated's Frank Deford so eloquently put it: "Not since King David sent Uriah the Hittite into the front lines to be killed, thereby allowing the widow Bathsheba to fall into David's embrace, has a planned contraction appeared so convenient." But wait, there''s more: eliminating the Twins would also mean increased revenue for Bud's "former" team, the Milwaukee Brewers. Forget the fact that he still effectively owns <I>that</I> team. Moreover, he approved the sale of the Boston Red Sox to a consortium he favored, in the interim making the sale of the Montreal Expos from Jeffrey Loria to MLB a reality. After all, it is much easier to contract or sell a team if you own it.<P>
From Montreal to Baghdad
For the major part of the period between 1994 and 2001, the powers that be in baseball have repeatedly pushed the Expos to the brink of extinction, but the baseball Gods have refused to let that happen. When Jeffrey Loria rode into town, dressed as a white knight, he fooled investors, enchanted media and mesmerized fans who were happy to see a savior in the New York art collector. The Trojan horse worked.
buy low, sell high
Both men put profit ahead of people.
Why Bud would do such a thing was a display of American capitalism at its best. He bought a depressed asset at an all-time low, bolstered it thanks to acquisitions and improved management, and the value of the team rose as the team's play improved. At the time, Bud wanted to sell the Expos to any city, preferably an American one. What really mattered was that the return on the league's investment would be sufficient to get him the much-sought respect that he had never commanded, very much like the man that leads our nation in the White House.
We say that Americans love a great conspiracy theory, why on Earth Selig has not been forced from office for this violation of the "sanctity of baseball" is a mystery that makes the Caramilk enigma a simple quandary.
Not to be outdone, Bush has effectively invaded a foreign sovereign country to take over its natural resources and advance national interests. So long as the return over the investment in war was justified, casualties of war would be acceptable for profit. The death toll now sits at over 10,000; less than 1,000 if you can count Americans, of course.
what happened to integrity?
Both men lack integrity.
If Thomas Jefferson were alive today, one must wonder, what his thoughts would be on Bud and Bush. After all, when baseball's popularity began to spread in the late 19th century, the United States of America was a young nation built on the altruistic ideals of French philosophers during the Age of Enlightenment. During the 20th century, America went through two World Wars and the Great Depression. Analogously, baseball endured the Black Sox scandal. Step by step, almost in parallel, America and America's pastime lost their innocence. No longer was it an innocent bystander sheltered from the rest of the world, it became -- sometime between 1941 and 1953 -- the world's greatest power, capable of shifting the balance in any equilibrium.
- 1941 marks the date the United States entered the fray in World War II, tilting the balance in the favor of the Allies.
- 1953 is perhaps the defining moment of the 20th Century for America. By 1951, the US signed a new agreement with the Arabian American Oil Company (Aramco), effectively remitting 50% of all earnings from oil (in turn, Aramco began to pay tax to Saudi Arabia instead of to the US government). Britain however was only remitting 15% of oil proceeds to the Iranian government. Suffice to say, Iranians wanted to restructure this deal. The best method was to replace the West's chosen leader, the Shah, in favor of someone who was in favor of the nationalizing the oil industry. Such a man was Mohammad Mossadegh. The Iranians actually got their wish, peacefully. But the Brits would have no part of it. In 1953, thanks to the CIA and Israel's Mossad, Britain re-instore the Shah, sending Mossadegh into house arrest. Exactly 50 years later, Tony Blair repaid America the favor by backing Bush into invading Iraq. The reason, anyway you dice it, was oil. The players, anyway you dice it, were the same.
the good, the bad & the ugly
As America's pastime, baseball represented all that was good about America. Problem was that as America's barometer, it also shows all that is wrong with America: greed, corruption, dishonesty, and a disregard for the greater good. Incidentally, all have been demonstrated by MLB and would have been greeted with horror by our Founding Fathers.
Starting with the Cold War and continuing after it, America has always - arguably rightfully - conducted itself in a manner that was in its national interests. Independent of whether this was on the military, athletic or commercial battleground, America knew that long term supremacy would entail reaching out to global consumers and secure global resources. As well, it knew that victory would be measured through American metrics and not worldwide ones.
Baseball was no different. While hockey was busy expanding South and to the West, baseball had to reach <I>beyond</I> America. After all, with numerous small market cities hosting baseball teams, international expansion was inevitable.
In 1968, years after baseball first flirted with the idea of expanding outside of the United States, Major League Baseball awarded a team to the city of Montreal. Despite the fact that the original financial backers dropped out, Charles Bronfman, son of the legendary bootlegger Samuel Bronfman, rescued Montreal's bid and ensured the livelihood of baseball for years to come in Canada's answer to Paris.
Since then, Montreal's more American cousin, Toronto has also been blessed with a professional baseball team in America's sport. Toronto, unlike Montreal, has even hoisted the World Series Championship, in 1992 and 1993. Montreal was not so lucky, despite leading the Major Leagues with a 74-40 record in 1994, players and owner's went down the road of yet another work stoppage and subsequently decided to scrap the season. Montreal's hopes were dashed, and the Expos were dealt a further blow as the shortened season's schedule reduced the team's revenues. In the ensuing fire sale, the Expos dealt their stars away, who went on to stellar careers and championships.
How times they change
The economy - while a bit sluggish after the dot com bubble burst - was still the hottest in the world. The sport - while still in the proverbial doghouse with fans for, well, for plenty of reasons - was regaining some long lost luster. The Expos - while still playing in the Big Owe and not getting more than 20,000 fans unless $1 hot dogs and $5 tickets were used as bait - represented a talent-laden organization, miles ahead of anywhere an expansion team would be. Even though recent expansion additions in Miami and subsequently Arizona won World Series rings in record time, the Montreal team would easily compete for a Championship with just one addition or two.
Bud knew that buying the team, holding it for a season only to flip it at a later day only made sense. Problem? Very much like America's false sense of security came crumbling down with those two towers on September 11th, 2001, Bud's dreams came tumbling down. After all, baseball now questioned the safety of players and staff outside of North America, it wondered what impact, if any, the attacks would have on the economy, and thus, the value of a baseball team on the selling block.
Suffice to say that the safety issue has effectively killed any possibility of fielding a team in Asia, Europe or South America anytime soon. True, the chances are there, and the Expos did play 22 games this year in San Juan, Puerto Rico. But the reality is that security concerns would likely cause numerous practical issues for any non-North American team. Clearing customs to go to a Montreal game is bad enough. do players really want to travel to Asian cities anytime soon? Probably not. They did not, after all, play in Japan this year as previously planned.
To add insult to injury, with an economy in disarray and a President incapable of fixing it, there were suddenly less takers at the Expos sweepstakes. As the 2002 baseball season came to an end, the Expos had yet to be sold. This year, the Expos played but 59 games in the Big Owe, but when they did, few teams were as good.
If Bud had his way, a suitor would come to the table. Washington DC, Northern Virginia, Portland are just some of the cities in the running, but with taxpayers reluctant to foot a stadium's costs and no owners willing to foot the entire bill themselves, it turns out, that Bud has bitten off a piece he will not be able to chew.
Funny, that sounds a lot the situation that George W. Bush found himself in Iraq.