Baseball Commissioner
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In 1920, the owners of Major League Baseball, in order to reestablish confidence of fans in the sport following the Black Sox Scandal, established the office of Commissioner of Baseball. Under the direction of the commissioner, the office hires and maintains the sport's umpiring crews, and negotiates marketing, labor, and television contracts. The commissioner is chosen by a vote of the owners of the teams; it is said that current President of the United States George W. Bush once angled for the position.
The unique title "Commissioner", which is a title now applied to the heads of several other major sports leagues as well as baseball, derives from its predecessor office, the National Commission. The National Commission was the ruling body of baseball starting with the National Agreement of 1903 which made peace between the leagues. It consisted of three members: the league presidents, and a Commission Chairman, whose primary responsibility was to preside at meetings and presumably to mediate disputes.
The Black Sox scandal was seen as a failure of the National Commission. The Commission was in some sense baseball's equivalent to the Articles of Confederation: a good start, but ultimately scrapped and replaced with a more powerful and centralized government.
The scandal of the late 1990s and early 2000s, centering on anabolic steroid usage by ballplayers, has been compared to the Black Sox scandal by some sportswriters. It is interesting to speculate on what the first ever commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis, who was essentially an absolute ruler (when compared to his successors), might have done with the steroids problem, and with the Barry Bonds situation. Many have criticized current commissioner Bud Selig for taking action too little and too late. However, as former commissioner Fay Vincent wrote in the April 24, 2006, issue of Sports Illustrated, with most of Bonds' official troubles being off the field, and with the strength of the players' union, there is little Selig can do beyond appointing an investigating committee. Vincent said that Selig is largely "an observer of a forum beyond his reach."
Commissioners of Baseball
- Kenesaw Mountain Landis (1920-1944)
- A. B. "Happy" Chandler I (1945-1951)
- Ford Frick (1951-1965)
- Lt. Gen. William Eckert (1965-1968)
- Bowie Kuhn (1969-1984)
- Peter Ueberroth (1984-1989)
- Bart Giamatti (1989)
- Fay Vincent (1989-1992)
- Bud Selig (1992-present; held title of "acting commissioner" from 1992-1998)
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