Terence Moore Writes the Fluff Piece to End All Fluff Pieces About Bud Selig

Terence Moore writes for MLB.com. I always get a good laugh reading his columns, because at the very end of his columns there is this disclaimer:

Terence Moore is a columnist for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

What Terence writes is not subject to approval from MLB. Sure, he works for MLB.com, but MLB doesn't give a shit what he writes. He could do a ten-part expose on how Rob Manfred is a closeted bigot who molests children in his spare time. IT DOESN'T MATTER, RUN THE STORY! That's how the reader is supposed to see it. Yet over the past few years Terence, an avowed "traditionalist" who hates all changes in baseball post-Big Red Machine, has written about how much he loves the following: a pitch clock, the one game Wild Card playoff, the All-Star Game format, and has slobbered all over Bud Selig once before. Well, once is not enough. Terence Moore has written the all-time fluff piece on Bud Selig and it's embarrassing. These two should just get a room.

I've defended Selig a few times, because I think he's done some good for MLB, and he gets mocked too much. Considering how outright hated Roger Goodell and Gary Bettman have become, while David Stern always received way too much credit for being handed the Bird/Magic/Jordan/Shaq/Kobe/LeBron era of the NBA and not fucking it up, I think Selig did a decent as commissioner of MLB. Bud Selig isn't my idea of a good time, but I also think he wasn't one of the worst commissioners in sports either. He moved baseball forward, and as much as the Steroid Era leaves a stain on his legacy, he also responded to the Steroid Era with a strong drug policy. But still...this is just too much. Terence Moore, NOT AT THE BEHEST OF MLB OR BECAUSE HE WORKS FOR THEM, thinks Bud Selig is the greatest and he's not afraid to slobber embarrassingly over Selig while making an ass of himself.

When Bud Selig isn't walking around his longtime Milwaukee neighborhood, stretching his 80-year-old legs while listening through his headphones to any baseball news he can find, he is watching 15 games a day.

There is a lot to mock here. The presentation as Bud Selig as an everyman is, of course, funny. I imagine that Selig's neighborhood isn't just a regular old neighborhood like you and I live in, but one of those neighborhoods that is really a shelter for the super-wealthy with a gate of some sort that keeps the unwanteds out. Also, I like to imagine Selig is listening to a Sony Walkman that doesn't even have a tape player.

Oh, and one other thing. It's impossible for Selig to watch all 15 games in a day. I doubt he stays up until 1am every night to catch the games. Good try, but I'm not buying it.

"I'm at home, and I have a little clicker, and I have a satellite, and I go from game to game," 

"A clicker." He has "a clicker," which I imagine he bangs on the couch cushion when it won't go to the channel he wants to go to immediately.

And if Terence wasn't on-the-nose enough with his description of Selig as an everyman, he'll just go ahead and point out that this fluff piece is about Bud Selig as an everyman. Just in case it's not obvious to the reader, here is what Terence is trying to paint Selig as being,

said the Commissioner Emeritus of Baseball, sharing his routine as just another fan.

Just another fan. And remember, no one asked Terence to write this column. This was a tongue-bath that he is giving Selig on his own accord. How this makes it better, I am not sure.

Well, Selig isn't just any fan. He spent more than two decades as the Commissioner, and he is four months into a retirement that doesn't exist.

Walking around the neighborhood, watching baseball all day. That's not retirement? If walking around the neighborhood and watching sports all day isn't retirement, then I have to wonder what Terence believes retirement to be. What Selig is doing all day, isn't that retirement for most people?

That means Selig is far from your average guy dreaming of snagging a foul ball some day from the bleachers.

As always, it wouldn't be a Terence Moore column if he didn't submarine his own point along the way. Bud Selig is a regular guy except he isn't.

(Terence Moore a few paragraphs ago) "Bud Selig is just like a regular guy watching baseball all day."

(Terence Moore now) "Bud Selig is not the average guy because he's too important and really, really wealthy."

Selig is that guy in spirit, though.

Well, in spirit I am really nice guy who is super-athletic and I treat everyone as I would like to be treated. Unfortunately, what I am in spirit doesn't matter when I'm not athletic enough to play professional sports, I can be an asshole and I'm incredibly impatient with some people. See, what I am in spirit doesn't matter, because in reality I'm not what I am in spirit.

Selig said he has been known to get a little excited at times while studying this baseball moment or that one.

"Studying this baseball moment..." I tell you, it sounds really fucking exciting just to talk about. I love sitting in front of the television, studying baseball moments. This sounds like something a real fan of baseball would do.

"Hey want to come over and use 'the clicker' to study baseball moments? Bring the fat free milk jug too. You know what? Screw it, bring over the jug of whole milk. I'm getting a little excited. There are baseball moments happening."

"I don't shout much, but I do mumble," Selig said. "Believe me, I will do that.

I'm not sure mumbling counts as getting excited. People who mumble when they get excited generally tend to be vagrants or other individuals who are slowly losing their mind. But yes, I absolutely do believe Bud Selig will mumble when he gets excited. That, I do believe. 

Other than that, I may say on occasion, 'What the heck is going on here?' That's when things aren't going the way I like them to go."

When those baseball moments aren't going right, sometimes you just have to ask "What the heck is going on here?" I like how Terence believes he's painting Bud Selig in a positive light, but he's portraying him as the same weird, quiet guy who seems aloof from everything and everyone that he was stereotyped as commissioner.  

Selig was speaking about "things" on the diamond, not in his life. Especially not his baseball life, because that has been an intriguing story.

Because as much as Terence wants to paint Bud Selig as a regular guy, "things" away from the field have gone pretty well for Bud Selig. His dad owned a car leasing business and Bud made a few bucks off of that. But no, Bud Selig is just a regular fan of baseball, walking around the neighborhood and watching television all day. Just like you and I watch baseball all day, except Bud Selig is much wealthier, has "a clicker," is definitely not living a life of retirement, and used to the commissioner of baseball.

I witnessed many of the middle chapters of that story, and this was when I knew Selig before I formally knew him. If you lived in Milwaukee during the early 1970s when my family and I moved to town, everybody in Wisconsin knew Allan Huber "Bud" Selig. He was woven into the fabric of the state. He owned the Brewers, and he was on the board of directors of the Green Bay Packers. His roommate at the University of Wisconsin was Herb Kohl, who became a U.S. Senator and the owner of the Milwaukee Bucks. Among Selig's best friends was Hank Aaron, which made sense.

And of course Terence Moore is writing this fluff piece on Selig because he grew up in Milwaukee. It's just like how Terence idolizes the Big Red Machine and so he writes 3-4 articles per year on them. 

Selig breathed all things Braves during their stay in his native Milwaukee from the early 1950s through the mid-1960s. When they left for Atlanta after the 1965 season, he got the White Sox to play games at old Milwaukee County Stadium

He eventually convinced baseball to allow the troubled Seattle Pilots franchise to become the Brewers before the 1970 season.

Bud Selig stole professional sports franchises from Seattle before it was cool to do so. He's ahead of his time in so many ways. 

I began knowing Selig for real during his journey from original owner of the Brewers to acting Commissioner in 1992 to full-time Commissioner from '98 through his retirement in January. Through it all, Selig never left Milwaukee as his primary residence.

That's so noble of him to include Milwaukee as his primary residence and not include any beach, vacation, or second homes as his primary residence. So even though Bud Selig may have multiple residences like any other baseball fan has, he is a man of the people, as seen by his keeping Milwaukee as his primary residence for tax purposes. I'm getting the warm and fuzzies now. 

Has Selig gone back to the future as Wisconsin's staunchest baseball fan?

"Well, that's the first thing people always ask me, and then they say, 'Now you can openly root for the Brewers,'" said Selig, with a sigh after a pause. "But I'm still careful that way."

Yes, be careful not to let anyone think the team that Selig grew up loving and used to own, like own in terms of him actually legally owning the franchise, would be the team he would cheer for when he's retired (I'm sorry, I meant "not really retired"). Can't have that. It's better to keep the people in the dark on Selig's rooting allegiances. 

Before long, he did something that his predecessors couldn't do, and that is, he got his fellow owners to come to a consensus on a slew of issues. He also was able to do the same with the Major League Baseball Players Association. Interleague Play. From two divisions to three, with Wild Cards in the playoffs. A replay system, and then an expanded replay system. The toughest drug-testing program in pro sports. A lasting peace between management and labor.

Outside of the one-game Wild Card, which I still hate, these is a nice list of Selig's accomplishments which have led to many baseball moments he can mutter under his breath about. 

"I am a fan, and I enjoy the game immensely," Selig said, adding that he was particularly fond of the retired Derek Jeter,

I mean, who doesn't love The Jeter? The answer? Minka Kelly. She is probably not a fan of The Jeter. And possibly Mariah Carey or Jessica Biel. Though no one can be sure since Derek Jeter still has their phones confiscated upon entrance to his home, so any complaints they had at the time about The Jeter will remain in those phones. 

and now they have what they call "The Selig Experience" at the same Miller Park that Selig built for the Brewers.

The "Experience" opened last week as a high-tech exhibit that uses multimedia to describe how Selig saved Major League Baseball in Wisconsin.

This doesn't sound self-serving at all. 

It features a 3D version of Selig in his old Milwaukee County Stadium office, and the highlights include Aaron slamming his National League pennant-clinching home run in 1957. 

A 3D version of Bud Selig. Screw muttering about baseball moments, I want to see a 3D Bud Selig for a real sense of excitement. 

"You know, it was just unbelievable when they opened 'The Selig Experience' last week, because sitting right next to me was Henry [Aaron], and right behind me was Robin Yount," Selig said, referring to two Baseball Hall of Famers with Milwaukee connections.

"I'm telling you. I wish you could have seen [Aaron's and Yount's] emotion while watching this thing. I do have a passion for baseball, and if you watch 'The Selig Experience,' I wouldn't have to tell you too much more."

"It's great to have these two great baseball players sitting there while they celebrate how I saved baseball in Milwaukee. What a great moment and everyone should celebrate how great I am."

Okay, it's not exactly what Selig means, but in a fluff piece about Bud Selig it's easy to mock how Selig seems to be celebrating himself just a little bit as well.

You ready for the money shot of slobbering that Terence will do over Bud Selig? It's basically a tongue-bath in written form. If "Open Arms" could be translated into sports talk, then sung by Terence Moore while on one knee as Bud Selig blushes and acts like he's embarrassed, then these last two sentences would be the equivalent of that song.

Actually, I've watched something better than "The Selig Experience" to see Selig's passion for baseball.

I've watched Selig.

Wow, that's an embarrassing way to end the column. I'm not sure I've ever read a person fawn over Bud Selig like this since the last time Terence Moore fawned over Selig. And in no way has Terence written such an embarrassingly devoted column because he works for MLB.com and cares to keep Selig's legacy in the forefront of people's minds. Not at all. 

Though I do have to ask the following question. Is Terence saying "The Selig Experience" isn't as good as sitting there on the couch, staring at Bud Selig, watching him mutter and bang "the clicker" on the couch in order to get it work? If so, that doesn't say a hell of a lot for "The Selig Experience."

The real "Selig Experience" would be watching a four hour baseball game and then having it end in a tie while everyone shrugs their shoulders and then walks home. Later, the decision will be made in order to prevent a tie from happening, as opposed to simply continuing to play baseball until one team wins, that there must be stakes tied to the game. Then World Series homefield advantage will be tied to this exhibition game, as if the real issue was that the stakes in the game weren't high enough and wasn't simply that the game ended in a tie. Knowing an exhibition game ended in a tie and figuring the best way to solve this problem was to raise the stakes and then tie these stakes from an exhibition game to the World Series, as opposed to simply making rules stating the exhibition game can't end in a tie...now that's the real "Selig Experience."