Custodians of the Public Distrust: Selig and Pohlad Conspire to Degrade Baseball and Its Fans

Jason Thornbury

The latest revelation exhibiting baseball ownership's seemingly innate Eddie Haskell deviousness is this doozy: Milwaukee Brewers owner and acting MLB commissioner Bud Selig arranged a $3 million loan from fellow owner Carl Pohlad of the Minnesota Twins -- the team Selig and Pohlad now wants to fatally extract from the league -- for, who else? His own Milwaukee Brewers, of course. Not only is this act clearly a baseball rules violation -- rule 20c, to be exact -- but it also demonstrates owners' continual willingness to soil the integrity of America's game.

When Twins fans bemoaned the possible loss of their team, Selig told them to "look in the mirror." Uh, Bud, have YOU looked in a mirror lately? (AP Photo/Paul Connors)

That much was evident in December when Selig, former used car hawker turned Major League Baseball Commissioner, sat before a Congressional committee, debating baseball's murky situation with Jesse Ventura, former WWF grappler turned Minnesota Governor. CSPAN's ratings must have soared.

This three-ring circus had more entertainment value than anything Barnum or Bailey could conjure: A Former Used Car Salesman vs. a Former Professional Wrestler "testifying" in front of slippery politicians who were charged with ferreting out the false witness. You half expected Jerry Springer to pop out as host. At one point, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) -- a woman so prone to hyperbole she claimed distress over Clinton's impeachment caused her to "wake up in the middle of the night with flashes of the struggles of my African ancestors for justice" -- felt compelled to remind Selig he was under oath. Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), a perfect fit to fill Chris Farley's chair at the beer-and-brat table in Saturday Night Live's Da Bears! skit, practically ordered Jesse to pile drive his adversary Bud as they each spoke to his House Judiciary Committee. Unfortunately, no such high jinks ensued.

Ventura did refer to Selig's case as "asinine," though, as he blasted baseball's anti-trust exemption and Selig pretzeled himself into a full nelson as he pleaded the absolute need to be treated unlike any other American business.

The Body sizes up the opposition and realizes that it's just too easy. Selig will probably half-nelson himself soon enough. (Win McNamee/Reuters)

But even if Congress squelches baseball's anti-trust status, baseball owners inspire more anti-trust than Bill Clinton. Selig claims baseball owners lost a combined $519 million last season. Skepticism suggests the books, if not cooked, at least were warmed over in Selig's microwave. Selig won't open the books to an independent audit lest his hands be caught in the oven mitts. These books would make Emeril proud. They likely have more leavening than a five-tiered wedding cake.

Past performance -- and Selig's latest transgression -- indicates that when it comes to creativity Martha Stewart has nothing on baseball owners. Baseball owners utilize creative financial accounting -- or what the Mafia calls standard operating procedure -- because their business lacks the market forces to which real-world businesses must conform or die. The only way for a business to accomplish its chief goal -- to make as much cake as legally possible -- is to serve the customer as best as possible. Baseball teams, however, are ostensibly motivated by two goals -- profit and winning. Logic suggests that more of the latter will bring more of the former.

A simple cost/benefit analysis, though, has made many baseball owners content with mediocre teams that garner small profits, rather than flirting with risk of earning bigger profits. It takes extra spending to win, but extra spending doesn't guarantee winning. In the real world, ignoring the customers' desire -- for a winning team, in this case -- leads to bankruptcy. But baseball owners are not subject to market forces because customers continue to patronize, in varying degrees, these businesses out of loyalty and because they have nowhere else to take their coin. If a customer decides attending a Colorado Rockies game is not worth the price of admission, where else does he go for major league baseball?

Even if there are multiple choices in town, loyalty prevents one team from losing all its customers to the other. Were it not so, the Mets and Angels would have no customers. Customer loyalty guarantees owners revenue. The ensuing profits, however, are not enough to satisfy, which is neither surprising nor unreasonable. In the real world, a business better serves the customer to increase profit.

Absent real-word motivations, owners get creative. In the '80s, baseball ownership was found guilty of collusion; that is, it conspired not to pay players their worth. In the '90s, baseball's low-watt bulbs banked on expansion to fill their accounts. Expansion fees paid by the four incoming owners were enough to fund Angola through the third millennium. But in their arrogant benevolence of extending baseball's reach, owners overlooked the forthcoming talent dilution and its multitude of problems, which has been such a plague owners now want to eliminate two teams.

Their infinite appetites not satiated, owners next dined on new stadiums. This was a most clever move. Owners gambled fans, weary of Astro-Turf and concrete, non-descript, "all-purpose" stadiums, would gush for modern shrines that echoed baseball's past -- such as Camden Yards -- and, therefore, would join them in demanding these new playfields be government financed (because, of course, owners aren't rich enough to pay for them). Fans didn't really care who paid as long as they were built. Fans got magnificent stadiums, and owners got magnificent revenues in the form of luxury suites, most of which are bought by the business class and used as tax write-offs.

So, government pays for stadium construction then pays for "fans" to attend. And the owners take it all to the bank. Tony Soprano would be proud.

And that's not to mention all the scoots resulting from the manipulation of ballpark dimensions and juiced baseballs. That's why this bell-ringing Selig-in-a-Salvation-Army-Santa-Suit bit is as bogus as a Michael Jackson's latest face. Unencumbered by the control of market forces, sports team owners owe the game they purport to love a little self-control. But baseball owners have less self-control than John Rocker. They are time-tested schemers who care less of baseball than of portfolios (see Texas owner Tom Hicks and the $250 billion he threw at Alex Rodriguez, knowing Arod wouldn't bring playoffs, but would bring payouts to his various business entities, like cable TV).

So, Former Used Car Salesman vs. Former Professional Wrestler? Well, at least pro wrestlers admit to their mendacity. At the end of the ninth, though, all a fan cares to know is if his National Pastime will be there for him tomorrow.

"The people of America care about baseball," reminded the late Bart Giamatti, who cared so much about baseball it killed him -- literally. "Not about your squalid little squabbles. Resume your dignity and remember that you are the temporary custodians of an enduring public trust."

The Selig-Pohlad loan proves -- yet again -- that baseball leadership isn't worthy of custodial duty of a toilet, let alone the "public trust." That's why the word of today -- and forever until ownership brightens up -- is "anti-trust."