With the impending re-un-retirement of Brett Favre in the air, my mind recently drifted back to 1992, as it is wont to do when I consider the quarterback’s longevity. That was the year Favre’s streak for consecutive games-started began, a streak that will likely continue this season with the Minnesota Vikings. 1992 was 17 years ago, but it seems like longer. That was the year of the Rodney King riots, the year Microsoft released Windows 3.1, and the year Ross Perot was taken seriously as a presidential candidate (for a while). Sure, some things have endured longer: Law & Order and The Simpsons remain staples on TV, Ted Kennedy is still hanging on to his job, and the Earth continues to revolve around the Sun. But one streak I hadn’t thought about in a long time started in 1992 and is still going strong: The baseball commissionership of Allen H. “Bud” Selig.

A lot of baseball fans hate Bud Selig, and I guess that is to be expected. The office of baseball commissioner was borne out of controversy and scandal, after all: Judge Kennesaw Mountain Landis was brought in to “clean up” Major League Baseball following the 1919 Black Sox scandal. (And, with the exception of segregation, gambling, steroid use, wife swapping, and the occasional pitcher on acid, baseball’s been clean ever since!) Like a president or a tribal chieftain, a commissioner of an athletic organization is going to be faced with tough decisions, and he’s liable to piss off a large number of his employees, to say nothing of the sport’s fans.

Well, I don’t count myself as one of baseball’s many fans, if we are defining “fan” as someone who a) follows passionately one or more teams, b) cares deeply about the history of the game and its future, or c) bets on games, thus suffering manic mood swings from their outcomes. I like baseball, at the ballpark, or maybe on TV in October. I watched/rooted for the Yankees during their recent salad days of 1996-2000 and a little after. (I think I just heard the collective groan of every Red Sox, Mets, and small market team fan in the country.) I watch Field of Dreams at least once a year. I’ve read and enjoyed books about baseball, studied the history of its ballparks and franchises, and even stood on one of the purported sites of the first game ever played (Hoboken, NJ, 1846 – 0-0 tie called after four hour rain delay). 

I just don’t get excited for baseball the way I do for football, basketball, or Batman films. Part of this is Selig’s fault. I long ago abandoned any pretension of rooting for the Milwaukee Brewers when Selig—then the team owner¹—refused to pony up the cash to keep Paul Molitor, arguably the most beloved Brewer of all time. I suppose ownership was still drunk on success after a 92-70 season in which the Crew barely missed the playoffs. Nevertheless, Molitor signed with Toronto as a designated hitter and won a World Series (and a Series MVP award), the Brewers embarked on a 15-year odyssey of mediocrity (or worse), and I found other things to do with my time than give a shit about them.

Nevertheless, I never actually hated Bud Selig. He had a financial decision to make, and he made it. Although I found the sport of major league baseball uninteresting, I still paid attention to the major news stories surrounding it in the ensuing years: Work stoppages, home run records falling, Congressional hearings, interleague play, etc.—the game’s history in action. As someone who has no emotional investment in MLB or any team, I believe I can offer a sober and fair judgment of the former used car salesman who now governs the game.

And damned if I’m not going to use a shopworn sportswriter’s device based on a Clint Eastwood movie title to do it.

¹Okay, technically, Selig transferred team ownership to his daughter, Wendy Selig-Prieb, in 1992, and even more technically, Sal Bando was the general manager in charge of signing players. But… come on.