Bud Selig, baseball’s longtime commissioner, continued his retirement tour Tuesday by visiting Citi Field. Which would sort of be like Halle Berry attending a screening of “Catwoman.”
No team, you could argue, holds a greater attachment to Selig’s legacy as commissioner than these Mets, whose financial travails these past five-plus years have devastated their fan base and therefore their bottom line. Not surprisingly, Selig sat in the news conference room — with his longtime friend and ally Fred Wilpon seated among the crowd — and doubled down on his loyalty to this franchise and its ownership.
“Do I have any problems with the Mets’ financials? None,” Selig said.
His New York legacy, or at least his Flushing legacy, will sink or swim with the fortunes of the Mets and another longtime pal, general manager Sandy Alderson. Which means that it’s shaky at this juncture.
The 80-year-old CEO, set to step down this coming January, showed he has plenty left in the tank, as he grew agitated, argumentative and downright fiery during a highly entertaining question-and-answer session that lasted nearly 20 minutes. The majority of the questions concerned the Mets’ on-the-field struggles and off-the-field confirmed parsimony and alleged hijinks.
The latest crisis landed last week, when former Mets senior vice president Leigh Castergine filed a discrimination lawsuit against the team and COO Jeff Wilpon.
“I monitor everything closely. But that’s employment litigation,” Selig said, before the Mets stopped a three-game losing streak by thumping the Marlins, 9-1. “There were a lot of charges there. Jeff denies them vigorously. I think in this particular case, they’re going to court, and we’re just going to have to see how it plays out. “
Selig later added: “We’ll see what happens with litigation. If the litigation goes forward. We don’t even know that.”
It’s fine to let the legal process carry on unimpeded, but once it concludes, MLB can and should go further to investigate Castergine’s charges, regardless of the outcome. Selig called baseball “a social institution” on Tuesday — it’s one of his favorite phrases — and the sport grades well on diversity hiring.
In light of that, Selig and his successor Rob Manfred must ensure that no workplace environment is or was uninviting to women.
The lawsuit resonated with Mets fans because of their more global complaint, that a New York team should be spending more than $83-ish million on major-league payroll. You know that the Mets’ owners slashed payroll in conjunction with their personal fortunes taking a gargantuan hit from Bernard Madoff’s December 2008 arrest, and you know that Selig helped Fred Wilpon with a $25 million loan when times got particularly tough.
“I’m a fan at heart,” said Selig, who ran the Milwaukee Brewers for nearly 23 years before ascending to the commissioner’s office. “So yes, I understand fan frustration. I do. I read every paper every day. I monitor every team. And honestly, if I felt — and I mean this very sincerely — that there was a team not doing what I thought they should be doing in the best interest of the sport, they’d hear from me. They’d hear from me.”
A master salesman — he sold used cars, after all — Selig tried to make his case that the Mets’ unwillingness to spend more does not equate to gross incompetence. He mentioned the Cardinals as a team that doesn’t “spend money like drunken sailors.” He passionately declared, “Unless I read the standings wrong on the way over here, it looks to me like the Baltimore Orioles might win the American League East this year. Anybody here predict that on April 1? I don’t think so. I rest my case.”
Well, the Cardinals’ payroll this season is about $141 million, as per Baseball-Reference.com. And the Orioles are paying about $114 million for their soon-to-be division-winning roster. Not quite the same as $83 million.
Selig pushed Fred Wilpon to hire Alderson, who served multiple terms as a Selig lieutenant in Major League Baseball’s central office, as Omar Minaya’s replacement back in October 2010.
Alderson has executed savvy trades, rebuilt the team’s farm system and even connected to the fans with wisecracks about the Mets’ penny-pinching ways. Nevertheless, the team’s two highest-paid players in 2014, David Wright ($20 million) and Curtis Granderson ($13 million), delivered insufficient bang for their bucks, and so the Mets (73-79) find themselves on pace for a sixth straight losing season.
Alderson, who has said he doesn’t anticipate much of a spending uptick in 2015, requires more room for error. Selig wants more positivity for his era. You’d think that Fred Wilpon could help out two people who have helped him so much. For now, though, it’s still Wilpon who’s most in need. So Selig heads to his next ballpark, surely knowing that the worst — of this tour, at least — is behind him.