NATIONAL HARBOR, MD. – Now, it’s just a matter of my fellow voters among the Baseball Writers Association of America doing the right thing and electing Tim Raines to the Hall of Fame.
Do that — there’s no reason it shouldn’t happen — and Cooperstown would have one of its day of days: Raines going into the Hall of Fame in a Montreal Expos hat, sharing the weekend with Bud Selig, the commissioner who oversaw the exit of the franchise from the city. I’m not certain Expos fans will ever get closure; I don’t know if there are enough hard feelings left to elicit any type of reaction. But if there is, this would be a time to show it.
Selig was voted into the Hall of Fame Sunday, along with Atlanta Braves executive John Schuerholz, in a meeting of the Veterans Committee. The latter was a unanimous decision among the 16 voters. Selig was elected by all but one and there are people throughout the game speculating that one was Hall of Famer Andre Dawson, another former Expos player who was part of the 16-member Today’s Game Era Committee that voted on the induction, the committee being part of a re-working of the old Veterans Committee system to deal with managers, officials and players not elected in BBWAA voting.
Dawson was one of the players to take a financial hit from collusive practices on the part of owners in the ‘80s, and that coupled with his Expos bloodlines meant it made sense he’d be the voter to demur. But Dawson told reporters that: "He (Selig) accomplished so much for the game itself that there was no doubt in my mind he should’ve been a permanent fixture as a Hall of Famer."
I’ve always been conflicted when it came to Selig, particularly his role in the departure of the Expos — or, rather, the franchise swap that saw Jeffrey Loria end up with the Florida (now Miami) Marlins and John Henry end up with the Boston Red Sox while baseball operated the Expos for a year before moving them to Washington, D.C.
First, Selig was generally above board with me in dealings involving the franchise. He returned calls and on a couple of occasions prevented me from going down the wrong path. I appreciated that. As a reporter, that’s absolutely the best you can hope for. More to the point, it was apparent to me from the second that Loria became involved in the Expos he was going to leverage his way out of the city. That he was allowed to do so says more about the other members of his limited partnership and the Montreal business community than it does Selig or anybody else. Now, if you want to debate the damage done to the Expos by the 1994 players strike, and Selig’s role in taking too much counsel from the likes of Jerry Reinsdorf? Yeah, you have a case. But in terms of the final years, that was as much a city and provincial issue as it was a baseball issue.
At any rate, the good news is lessons have been learned: I truly believe that Major League Baseball will be back in Montreal within six years, because real business people with real money and a deft political touch are behind the latest attempt to re-generate interest. That gives me hope, as does the presence of a new commissioner in Rob Manfred who has made clear he doesn’t need to see a new stadium built and ready to open before committing to a team.
I believe the balance sheet is remarkably favourable for Selig, at least from a baseball point of view: expanded playoffs, an early embracing of new media, new stadiums, labour peace, competitive balance and franchise stability have been a hallmark of the game’s last two decades. And while it’s not all down to him, if you accept the idea that Selig deserves blame for the bad then you must grant him at least equal accolades for the good.
But having said all that, there is something about Selig’s election that doesn’t sit right with a lot of us. To begin with, it’s odd that the same committee that has chosen to overlook his complicity in the game’s steroid era — it took 12 votes to get in — appeared to give short shrift to Mark McGwire’s candidacy on the same ballot. That’s a problem, because there are those around the game who desperately hoped the committee setup would provide a way (albeit decidedly backdoor) for worthy players who carry the stain of the steroid era to somehow go into the Hall; a kind of almost-palatable end-run around the BBWAA, if you will, for the likes of McGwire, Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds.
One of the hallmarks of Selig’s tenure was his remarkable ability as a horse-trader and collector of IOUs. The Toronto Blue Jays know that; they fell in lockstep during the early days of Paul Godfrey’s tenure as president because Selig was giving them $5 million (U.S.) per year currency equalization. So do cities that built new stadiums, in part because of the carrot represented by future all-star games. Selig’s stilted public persona did not do justice to his skills as a manipulator of minds and money and opinions and his eye for detail. Consequently, it beggars belief that he didn’t have an inkling about what was going on in the training rooms and clubhouses of his game.
There’s one more reason that Selig’s election elicits a share of bitterness from many of us: the fact that he is in the Hall of Fame and the late Marvin Miller is not. This is the biggest hole in Cooperstown, a travesty because so many of the former players who voted on previous Veterans Committees owe so much to the man who founded the Major League Baseball Players Association. Until baseball can wrestle this issue to the ground and come to grips with that part of its history — until it learns to bury those grievances — the chances of baseball ever closing the circle on the steroid era are slim indeed.
In the meantime, if Selig and Raines go in on the same weekend this summer, let it be further proof that no sports gods have the same cynical sense of humour as the baseball gods.
