Bud Selig used the Brewers' run to the brink of their first World Series title to renew a fight he has lost before. The 92-year-old said this week that MLB needs to make adjustments and backed a hard salary cap and floor as owners press for changes.
For Selig, the timing matters. The Brewers entered Friday's Game 1 with MLB's best regular-season record after an emphatic sweep of the Dodgers in the National League Championship Series, and they were favored over the American League champion Rays. That makes the moment a celebration in Milwaukee, but it also gives Selig a fresh example for an argument he has carried for more than three decades: big success by one small-market club does not erase the structural problem for the rest.
Selig acquired the Seattle Pilots franchise out of bankruptcy in 1970, moved it to Milwaukee and formed the Brewers, then spent 1994 unsuccessfully pushing for a salary cap as commissioner. That labor fight helped bring down the 1994 playoffs and World Series early, and his new public backing lands as the league again heads toward a fraught bargaining stretch, with a possible lockout in December hanging over the sport. He has been out of the commissioner role for nearly 12 years, but he remains in contact with league executives and owners, including Rob Manfred, and he said he and Mark Attanasio have spoken at length about the issue.
That is why Selig's comments cut through more than a routine show of support for the home team. He said owners' proposed changes are not only rational but essential, and he argued that small-market challenges do not simply disappear because one club has broken through. In his view, Milwaukee's surge is proof of what a well-run club can do, not proof that the system no longer needs repair. He was scheduled to be at American Family Field on Friday night for a first-pitch ceremony with Robin Yount, though he said Yount should throw the pitch because he is 92 and should be there for the beginning of what he called a great moment.
For Selig, the celebration and the policy fight are now tied together. The Brewers may be on the edge of the franchise's first championship, but he is using that success to argue that MLB still needs rules that narrow the gap before the next labor showdown arrives.
