No, Bud Selig Didn't Cause the Financial Crisis

Did you hear the stock market has gone down roughly 5,000 points over the last two months? Well, it must be Bud Selig's fault. That's right, it must be the commissioner of baseball, because apparently everything he does is wrong.

For any baseball fans reading this blog, you are familiar with Bud Selig. He has been the commissioner of baseball since 1992, and he has done a lot of good for the game -- unfortunately every time something goes wrong -- make that ANYTHING -- baseball fans blame Bud.

Rain starts in Philadelphia, and the World Series game last night wasn't called soon enough -- Bud gets blamed, and not the umpires, who have controlled that aspect of the game for 132 years now.

A hurricane hits Houston, and it's Bud's fault that the games have to be moved to Milwaukee -- not the Houston owner who waited too long to agree to the move.

Baseball stars started doing steroids, and it's Bud's fault, not the players who took the drugs.

In reality, Bud's done a lot of good for the game. He helped introduce interleague play, pitting National League teams against American League teams during the regular season, which has brought a lot of interest to baseball.

He also made the MLB All-Star Game worth watching again, by establishing a rule that whichever league wins the game gets home field advantage in the World Series.

Purists have complained about these moves, but they have both done a tremendous amount for the game -- interleague play has attracted tons of fans, creating new rivalries, which are the biggest games of the season for some teams.

Meanwhile, a lot of fans complain that the All-Star Game rule shouldn't have been introduced, because it's an exhibition game. Those "fans" apparently didn't watch All-Star games before 1987. You see, in the late 1980s, players started making too much money to care whether they won or lost the game, so they basically stopped trying to win -- instead, hitters just kept trying to hit homeruns to look cool in front of the fans.

Now the game counts again --players are starting to bunt, i.e. sacrifice their at bat for the greater good of the team, and managers are actually managing -- making it the only professional all star game worth watching. Besides, before they started this, home field advantage flip flopped from American to National league each year -- totally arbitrary, and stupid.

Bud has made some missteps, like not introducing a more stringent drug policy in baseball sooner, but overall, the game's a lot better than when he started his reign as commissioner.

So, if there's an earthquake tomorrow, don't start pointing the finger at Bud.

RoadRage