Selig is evasive on Bonds
Baseball commissioner Bud Selig dropped by Fenway Park last night and identified China as the next frontier, said his sport's new playoff schedule will improve already robust television ratings, and revealed he had nothing to do with the rule that banished Johnny Pesky from the Red Sox dugout during games.
But of course, you don't care about any of that. You only want to know one thing from Bud: Is he going, or isn't he?
"I'm really not going to comment," said Selig when asked if he would be in attendance when Giants star Barry Bonds breaks the home run record held by Selig's close friend, Henry Aaron. "I'll make up my mind at some point."
It is a quandary of mammoth proportions. The fact that Selig has not decided whether to attend the historic game speaks to his conflicted feelings about one of baseball's most notorious stars, who has been under a cloud of steroid suspicion for the past several years. Revelations in the book "Game of Shadows" that Bonds testified before a secret grand jury that he "unknowingly" used a steroid cream, and documents that have connected him to BALCO, have only made his pursuit of Aaron's record -- with 745 homers, he's 10 away -- more excruciating for many fans. And the commissioner.
Selig spoke warmly about Aaron last night. He reminisced about watching the slugger's first game in the big leagues, as well as his last. He was unable to attend when Aaron broke Babe Ruth's record in 1974, but, he said, he still remembers watching the historic moment from his office in Milwaukee.
"The nicest thing I can say about Hank Aaron is he's the same nice, quiet, thoughtful human being that he was when I first met him in 1957," Selig said. "I've seen him do spectacular things on the field and off the field."
Selig also said he thinks interleague play has been "terrific," has no plans to revamp the posting process that prompted the Red Sox to pay the Seibu Lions $51.1 million for the right to negotiate with Daisuke Matsuzaka, and hopes a new postseason schedule that will start the World Series on a Wednesday night and carry over into early November will improve ratings.
Asked his priority aside from steroids, which he steadfastly refused to discuss, Selig mentioned the internationalization of the game, then added, "The sport is doing so well. It's so popular. I don't want anything to get in the way of that."
Selig knows soon -- very soon -- it will no longer be possible to sidestep Bonds and the obvious public relations headaches he presents. Baseball's top man will have to weigh in on the most controversial hitter of his generation. Whatever Selig decides will resonate more than ballgames in Asia, Pesky's perch, or World Series games after Halloween. 