It wasn’t a vicious crowd in Cooperstown yesterday, and the boos were neither particularly loud nor particularly lusty, but the former Commissioner of Baseball, Bud Selig, did get some catcalls at his induction yesterday afternoon.
As the New York Times reports, he got booed on Saturday during the parade through Cooperstown and then on Sunday, when his name was first announced, the part of the crowd that sits on the lawn (i.e. not officially invited guests of Major League Baseball who sit closer to the front) booed and jeered him. Later, when he was officially announced to give his speech there were fewer boos, though a large contingent of Expos fans down for Tim Raines’ induction turned their back and shouted at him. Others noted that some of the people with an incentive to boo -- Astros fans still salty over the team being moved out of the National League under Selig’s watch -- had already left because Selig spoke after Jeff Bagwell did, so it could’ve been louder.
No one keeps score of such things for long, and any way you slice it, Bud Selig is now “Hall of Famer, Bud Selig.” As I wrote back in December, however, there was and remains good reason to think that Selig, for all of his accomplishments, had no business being up on that stage yesterday, and that his induction was a disgrace.
