Bud Selig, who oversaw the cancellation of the 1994 World Series and then chaperoned baseball into an era of significant success and prosperity, was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame on Sunday. He will enter alongside John Schuerholz, the longtime executive of the Kansas City Royals and Atlanta Braves. Selig and Schuerholz were named to the hall by the Today’s Game Era Committee, once known as the veterans’ committee.
John Schuerholz, Bud Selig elected to #HOF by Today’s Game Era Committee. #HOF2017 https://t.co/SF6CLHM623
— Baseball Hall ⚾ (@baseballhall) December 4, 2016
Bud Selig, John Schuerholz Elected to Hall of Fame
Managers Davey Johnson and Lou Piniella were blocked out, along with former New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner and players Will Clark, Albert Belle, Orel Hershiser, and Mark McGwire.
Bud Selig becomes the fifth of the 10 commissioners to get elected to the Hall of Fame. His influence is all over the game, both positive and negative. He presided over remarkable revenue growth and had a big hand in enforcing more revenue sharing, interleague play, the World Baseball Classic, and the wild card. However, Selig also operated the cancellation of the 1994 World Series, and ignored the surge of steroids into the game, too often creating negative publicity.
For a lot of baseball fans, seeing Selig get elected while Barry Bonds, McGwire, and Roger Clemens are still left out in the cold is a hard pill to swallow. Perhaps Selig’s election could open the door for such players.
Schuerholz becomes the sixth person considered as a general manager to get elected. He averaged 90 wins a season with the Braves and the Royals, and became the first GM to win the World Series in both leagues; he won it in 1985 with Kansas City, and in 1995 with Atlanta. His Braves teams won 14 consecutive division titles. His election certainly came as a no-brainer, as it only took him this long to get elected because he had to wait until turning 70 to be eligible.
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