The commissioner of Major League Baseball, Bud Selig, has announced his intention to step down after the 2014 season.
The commissioner of Major League Baseball, Bud Selig, has announced his intention to step down after the 2014 season.
The 79-year-old, who also owns the Milwaukee Brewers, has been in the job since 1992, when baseball’s proprietors banded together to get rid of their last independent overseer, Fay Vincent.
The game has grown under Selig’s tenure; revenue is up more than 400 per cent, and baseball’s new national TV deals bring in $1.5 billion a year. But he also presided over the sport’s continuing problems with performance-enhancing drugs and the labour dispute that cancelled the 1994 World Series.
Fans shouldn’t pop the champagne cork just yet, however. Selig previously announced plans to retire in 2009 and 2012.