Thursday, January 15, 2015

Commissioner-Elect Touts 'One Baseball' Theme

(Associated Press Photo)
At last, it appears that we will have a Commissioner of Major League Baseball with vision. Soon-to-be Commissioner Rob Manfred (who takes office on January 25th) recently addressed a convention of baseball coaches and touted the idea of "One Baseball". Essentially, his idea is to project a unified image of baseball—with MLB more active at all levels of the sport. Said Manfred, "Major League Baseball is committed to the idea that we are going to be more actively engaged with all parts of the baseball community at all levels...Our tagline for this effort is One Baseball. We want one umbrella effort, with Major League Baseball at the top of it, but involving college, high school and various youth programs." Was Bud Selig ever this articulate about the game we all love? Hopefully, the new Commissioner will extend his unity theme to the rules of baseball—and make the DH universal.