For the good of the game : the inside story of the surprising and dramatic transformation of Major League Baseball / Bud Selig with Phil Rogers.

By:

Selig, Bud, 1934-

Material type: Text

TextPublisher: New York, NY : William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, [2019]Edition: First editionDescription: xiii, 318 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color) ; 24 cmISBN:

9780062905956
0062905953

Subject(s):

Summary: The longtime Commissioner of Major League Baseball provides an unprecedented look inside professional baseball today, focusing on how he helped bring the game into the modern age and revealing his interactions with players, managers, fellow owners, and fans nationwide. More than a century old, the game of baseball is resistant to change--owners, managers, players, and fans all hate it. Yet, now more than ever, baseball needs to evolve -- to compete with other professional sports, stay relevant, and remain America's Pastime it must adapt. Perhaps no one knows this better than Bud Selig who, as the head of MLB for more than twenty years, ushered in some of the most important, and controversial, changes in the game's history -- modernizing a sport that had remained unchanged since the 1960s. In this enlightening and surprising book, Selig goes inside the most difficult decisions and moments of his career, looking at how he worked to balance baseball's storied history with the pressures of the twenty-first century to ensure its future. Part baseball story, part business saga, and part memoir, For the Good of the Game chronicles Selig's career, takes fans inside locker rooms and board rooms, and offers an intimate, fascinating account of the frequently messy process involved in transforming an American institution. Featuring an all-star lineup of the biggest names from the last forty years of baseball, Selig recalls the vital games, private moments, and tense conversations he's shared with Hall of Fame players and managers and the contentious calls he's made. He also speaks candidly about hot-button issues the steroid scandal that threatened to destroy the game, telling his side of the story in full and for the first time. As he looks back and forward, Selig outlines the stakes for baseball's continued transformation -- and why the changes he helped usher in must only be the beginning.

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Holdings
Item type	Current library	Collection	Shelving location	Call number	Status	Date due	Barcode	Item holds
Adult Book	Phillipsburg Free Public Library	Adult Non-Fiction	Adult Non-Fiction	796.357 SEL	Available		36748002444117

Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

A New York Times bestseller

Foreword by Doris Kearns Goodwin

In this enlightening and surprising book, Selig goes inside the most difficult decisions and moments of his career, looking at how he worked to balance baseball's storied history with the pressures of the twenty-first century to ensure its future. Part baseball story, part business saga, and part memoir, For the Good of the Game chronicles Selig's career, takes fans inside locker rooms and board rooms, and offers an intimate, fascinating account of the frequently messy process involved in transforming an American institution. Featuring an all-star lineup of the biggest names from the last forty years of baseball, Selig recalls the vital games, private moments, and tense conversations he's shared with Hall of Fame players and managers and the contentious calls he's made. He also speaks candidly about hot-button issues the steroid scandal that threatened to destroy the game, telling his side of the story in full and for the first time.

As he looks back and forward, Selig outlines the stakes for baseball's continued transformation--and why the changes he helped usher in must only be the beginning.

Illustrated with sixteen pages of photographs.

The longtime Commissioner of Major League Baseball provides an unprecedented look inside professional baseball today, focusing on how he helped bring the game into the modern age and revealing his interactions with players, managers, fellow owners, and fans nationwide. More than a century old, the game of baseball is resistant to change--owners, managers, players, and fans all hate it. Yet, now more than ever, baseball needs to evolve -- to compete with other professional sports, stay relevant, and remain America's Pastime it must adapt. Perhaps no one knows this better than Bud Selig who, as the head of MLB for more than twenty years, ushered in some of the most important, and controversial, changes in the game's history -- modernizing a sport that had remained unchanged since the 1960s. In this enlightening and surprising book, Selig goes inside the most difficult decisions and moments of his career, looking at how he worked to balance baseball's storied history with the pressures of the twenty-first century to ensure its future. Part baseball story, part business saga, and part memoir, For the Good of the Game chronicles Selig's career, takes fans inside locker rooms and board rooms, and offers an intimate, fascinating account of the frequently messy process involved in transforming an American institution. Featuring an all-star lineup of the biggest names from the last forty years of baseball, Selig recalls the vital games, private moments, and tense conversations he's shared with Hall of Fame players and managers and the contentious calls he's made. He also speaks candidly about hot-button issues the steroid scandal that threatened to destroy the game, telling his side of the story in full and for the first time. As he looks back and forward, Selig outlines the stakes for baseball's continued transformation -- and why the changes he helped usher in must only be the beginning.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

Selig, the controversial ninth commissioner of Major League Baseball from 1992 to 2015, offers a captivating look at the evolution of the game of baseball throughout his tenure. During the steroid era of the 1990s and 2000s, Selig endured misery and ridicule but persevered through it all. He ended up fostering much-needed changes to the game, which now has some of the toughest steroid policies in all of sports, and financially turned the game around to enormous profits. In this telling, Selig's passion for baseball was evident from an early age; his love for the sport was dear to him and only grew stronger as he aged. He recounts conversations with players, coaches, and managers while describing his efforts at business dealings, labor relations, and managerial practices. The result is a fascinating memoir that touches on sports and business from one of baseball's top executives. VERDICT Selig's extraordinary time as commissioner is a story worth telling. All baseball fans, especially those interested in how the sport overcame the steroid era, owe it to themselves to take a look.--Gus Palas, Ela Area P.L., Lake Zurich, IL

Publishers Weekly Review

Selig, who served as the ninth commissioner of Major League Baseball from 1998 to 2015, delivers a straightforward, insightful account of his life and how he dealt with challenges in a quickly changing sport. Starting with his ownership of his hometown Milwaukee Brewers in 1970, through his becoming commissioner after the resignation of Fay Vincent, Selig gives an honest account of his struggles with what he believed were owners "stuck in the past" and "planted on the wrong side of history" when it came to modernizing the league's economic system and forging a partnership with the Players Association. Selig praises union negotiator Marvin Miller, who understood "that the union, and not management, controlled the players." After the baseball strike of 1994, Selig was hard on team owners, who he felt needed "to see that they could not rely on a union-based solution" to fix the economic problems they faced, but instead "had to look beyond the players and union for ways to increase revenue and ensure their teams' solvency." Selig doesn't shy from the many controversies in MLB, and is equally hard on the players--and himself--especially his role during the league's widespread steroid issues that lasted until the end of his tenure. Baseball fans looking for a straight-talking, insider look into the business of the sport will delight in this outing. (July)

Booklist Review

Selig, Major League Baseball's commissioner for more than 20 years, was a strong advocate for change, which often made him controversial in a sport legendarily committed to tradition. Selig, however, realized that the status quo could diminish interest in the game dramatically, especially in light of the growing popularity of the NFL and the NBA. One of the most significant issues Selig had to contend with was the disparity between big- and small-market teams. The big boys were used to winning and fought ferociously as Selig put in place structural and financial considerations designed to level the playing field and make it possible for small-market teams to compete effectively. Selig also had to deal with steroids, which turned singles hitters into bulked-up behemoths with exponentially more power than they'd previously shown. Selig was criticized in the press for waiting too long to put a performance-enhancing-drug-testing policy in place, but, as he shows here, he had to negotiate with both the players' union and the owners, who supported anything that put fans in the seats and fans love home runs. Selig, who was elected to the Hall of Fame on the first ballot, makes a strong case that, controversy surrounding his stewardship notwithstanding, baseball was healthier when he left than when he arrived.--Wes Lukowsky Copyright 2010 Booklist

Kirkus Book Review

A former commissioner of baseball rehearses his years and achievements in the game.After a foreword by Doris Kearns Goodwin, Selig begins with a difficult year for him and baseball2007, a year dominated by Barry Bonds' chase for the all-time home run record and steroid scandalsbefore settling in to a fairly conventional chronological (and sometimes clichd) summary of his experiences as a fan, owner (Milwaukee Brewers), and commissioner, the job that earned him a Baseball Hall of Fame induction in 2017. Although the author focuses almost entirely on his baseball life, he briefly discusses his marriage, his daughter's management of the Brewers, and his friendships, especially with Hank Aaron, whose record Bonds broke, and George W. Bush. Selig provides a fairly extensive account of 9/11, how baseball contributed to public healing, and how then-President Bush was, in the author's view, a hero. He also includes a tribute to the late Sen. John McCain, whom he greatly admired (he offers no comment about Donald Trump, who has publicly denigrated McCain). Baseball fans will appreciate Selig's coverage of the key issues that arose during his tenure, including the introduction of the "wild card" teams, the Pete Rose gambling case (Selig believes Rose's banishment from baseball remains just), the rise of the players' union, the destructive battle about steroids and other drugs, the notion of revenue-sharing among the teams (a concept borrowed from the NFL and its former commissioner Pete Rozelle, whom Selig praises extensively), the financial resurgence of baseball, and the spread of the game around the world. Selig does not express a lot of modesty or offer much in the way of confessions of failure, human or professional; in all, he maintained "clear eyes, an open mind, and a willingness to make personal sacrifices for the good of the game."A broken-bat blooper that falls for a double. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.