As the hunt for work continues, someone asked me what my dream job is.
Without hesitation, I said, "I want to be Commissioner of Baseball."
It wouldn't be easy, and I have no illusions about my ability to fix what's wrong with baseball, but I have my ideas about some things to get baseball on the right path. I don't think the owners or the players would like me much and that seems like a good start.
I'm qualified.
I'm a college graduate with common sense, some people and diplomatic skills. I'm "stubborn Dutch" (as my great aunt used to say). I understand that the only worse job in baseball is being an umpire, and I have a great deal of respect for sports officials who do their job well and little patience for those who screw up on a regular basis.
Most of all I love baseball. Not the business of baseball, but baseball itself.
I'm not an owner with something to gain from the job, I'm not beholden to any team owners, and just ask my nieces and nephew, I can be stern even with the ones I love the most. I would work with other U.S. sports and international sports federations to determine levels of drug testing and what substances to ban. I would make owners give more than lip service to salary caps. The fines for going over the cap would be the same as the amount spent over the cap. These fines would be divided among the teams with the lowest payrolls. Let Steinbrenner pay for the Royals. Why not?
As for negotiating and strikes/lock outs. Fine, but let's hit everyone where it hurts. The owners must continue to pay player salaries and the players union should pay for the wages of the part-time grounds crews, concessions workers and other people whose stadium jobs depend directly on the number of games they work. Office people who are year round will continue to be paid by the team/arena which has hired them. This should speed up negotiations.
I would do the job for less than 1/3 of the current compensation. With the rest of that money I would surround myself with smart people: small business owners, lawyers, accountants, doctors and the occasional research scientist. The only thing they might have in common is the love of the game and the desire to make it what it never has been but just maybe can be.
Baseball, except maybe in little league 30 years and more ago, has rarely been the sport of the pure and virtuous athlete. Read any edition of
Ball Four by Jim Bouton if you doubt me. Read some biographies of great players and see how many of them drank too much and partied too hard - even on game day. Baseballers are humans doing their jobs and when they're in the bigs they are doing their jobs better than anyone else.
As commissioner I would go to games. A, AA, AAA, MLB, college, little league, winter league. I would look at the game from every facet I can imagine (limited on the field because I was a left handed catcher in slow pitch softball and only played 1st a bit and in the outfield for two years after my knees died). I would try to be like the great baseball writer Roger Angell , going to games for love of the game - OK, I do that now but I would be at as many games as I can stand for as much of the year as possible. I would not let games interfere with the business side of the job, but I would try not to let business interfere with the game either.
I don't think I can fix baseball, but I believe I can put in on the right path. All I want for my retirement package is health insurance, the pension of a low wage big league player, and a life time pass.
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