Dein erstes Forum » cal hero and man for this season of all seas

Former Yankees manager Joe Torre had a saying that seemed especially pertinent during the hell and lying of the Steroid Era. He would often tell players who were damaging the game that baseball is something you borrow. Your responsibility is to leave the game in better condition than it was when you entered.On Sunday, a new 16-member group called the Todays Era committee enshrined Bud Selig into the Baseball Hall of Fame, perhaps by deciding that Selig falls on the affirmative side of Torres criteria or perhaps because Seligs induction was always a foregone conclusion to happen while he was alive. To ensure the latter, baseball essentially held a special election, guaranteeing the nearly 83-year-old ex-commissioner and ultimate baseball insider would come up for a vote.But does Selig pass Torres litmus test? In so many ways, Seligs 20-year reign as commissioner resembles the contradictions of the Steroid Era itself. On the night of Sept. 8, 1998, at old Busch Stadium in St. Louis, Selig sat next to Cardinals legend Stan Musial when Mark McGwire hit his 62nd home run. Cubs right fielder Sammy Sosa, McGwires friendly rival that summer, raced from the outfield to hug McGwire as he rounded the bases. Watching the scene, Selig leaned over to Musial and said, This is a renaissance.In retrospect, the moment was grotesque. Baseball doesnt even celebrate it now -- McGwires 70 home runs that year, Sosas 66, or the 73 Barry Bonds would hit three seasons later. The two protagonists of the scene, McGwire and Sosa, are both disgraced -- 1,192 combined home runs, and neither are in the Hall of Fame. In fact, neither has come close: McGwire has never surpassed 23.7 percent of the 75 needed for enshrinement, while Sosas high was 12.5 percent in his first year of 2013 (it dropped to 7 percent last year). Baseball disowned 1998. Those players are radioactive. Selig is immortal.Selig would use the word renaissance often during those years, forcing the question of what kind of renaissance could be defined by a simultaneous financial rise and moral decline. Baseball has become a $10 billion money machine, and yet drugs have undermined it, a sport in which the record book is central to the game. The greatest players of Seligs time might never take the dais he will assume come July.Under Selig, baseball lost virtually every advantage that gave it its very special power as a national pastime. But there was never any question of his induction, because he succeeded in accomplishing two primary missions -- for him, really, the only two that mattered -- harmony and money. Before Selig, baseball owners did not just fight the players but also each other, cut along the interests of large and small markets. Selig, as an owner of the Milwaukee Brewers, was the consensus builder who worked the phones tirelessly in an attempt to create a kind of unity. He saw harmony through the NFL, where then-commissioner Pete Rozelle was able to bring together disparate financial interests under one umbrella for the good of the league.Seligs most lasting accomplishment will be the greatest era of stadium building in the history of the sport. From the time he was named interim commissioner in 1992 until his retirement at the end of the 2014 season, 22 new stadiums were built. One team, the Atlanta Braves, broke ground on two. With the exception of San Franciscos, all of the stadiums were built with a majority of public money. In return for their compliance, Bud Selig made his owners and himself enormously wealthy.He also brought one of the games legends back into the fold. As a college student, Selig skipped class to watch the Milwaukee Braves. He was there in 1957, when Hank Aaron hit the 11th inning home run that put the Braves in the World Series for the first time since moving from Boston in 1952, and he and Aaron would become lifelong friends. When Selig took over as commissioner, Aaron was a disillusioned legend, convinced the game had never respected him or his accomplishments. With Selig as commissioner, a generation of baseball people who saw Aaron as a bitter old man now had to face Seligs wrath. Today, Aaron is revered as a legend of the sport -- the Hank Aaron Award, given to the best offensive players in each league, bears his name. None of this happens without Seligs support.For these accomplishments, Seligs success is not to be discounted. Equally important, however, is another message Selig sent throughout his tenure, and again Monday during the announcement of his induction -- he is an owner, and the rules of accountability do not apply to the people in power. At the core of baseball has always been a never-ending battle between management and labor, and of this Bud Selig is most reflective.He was a small-market hawk dedicated to curbing the power of the big teams -- most notably the Yankees, the games most legendary franchise -- but for several of his years as commissioner, he earned a higher annual salary than almost every player. He was a primary force in the collusion battles of the 1980s, when owners were found guilty of conspiring to not sign free agents, destroying an already bitter relationship with the union. He was the face of the coup that toppled former commissioner Fay Vincent and led to the disastrous 1994 strike. Seligs response, as acting commissioner, was to cancel the World Series and allow the installation of replacement players -- until future Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor ruled that ownership had not acted in good faith.The Steroid Era players over whom Selig presided -- McGwire, Sosa, Bonds, Roger Clemens, Rafael Palmeiro -- have been barred from enshrinement. Alex Rodriguez is soon to follow. But Selig responded Monday to the position that he ignored the rising use of steroids in the same manner he has responded for the past decade and a half: by blaming the Players Association and relying on the strength of baseballs current drug-testing policy. This position skirts the truth. Selig did not ignore the steroid threat. Instead, like the union, he actively denied a threat existed. He reacted only when the absurdity of the numbers -- the top six single-season home run records were established between 1998-2001 -- as well as heavy pressure from Congress, the IRS and the Justice Department, exposed the game. Seligs leadership did not force change. The sport simply could not deny the facts any longer.His pronouncement that baseball has the toughest testing program in America does not reconcile with his previous behavior: the steadfast refusal to look back and investigate the sport. Selig and the league believed it could stiff-arm Congress until the government forced it to be humiliated at the 2005 hearings. Selig believed his vindication would be the 2007 Mitchell Report, but the power of the report was thwarted both by the unions refusal to cooperate and by Seligs decision to take care of his friends -- his practice of always trying to tilt the deal in his favor: he appointed George Mitchell, who was on the Red Sox payroll, and his law firm, DLA Piper, which worked with MLB. The result was a powerful document that served more to hammer labor than deliver justice: The players absorbed the public shame and have been kept from Cooperstown, but the organizations and front-office employees, also indicted in the document, received no punishment, at Mitchells urging. Somewhere, Selig knows this, and periodically he will say that he should have done more. In reality, there is a union to be blamed, a press, players and a cynical public, and with that is an immutable truth: the industry failed, it has paid a devastating, irreparable price, and Selig was at its head.When applied to Selig, Torres question of whether he left the game better than when he entered will likely live without consensus. The legacy of his enshrinement may very well be the eventual enshrinement of the steroid-tainted players, who so far are the only ones who have paid even a partial price from a ruinous generation of dishonesty that changed the game far for the worse. Nike Air Max 90 Off White Schweiz . Breaking three of his own world records on his way to winning in Paris, Chan silenced the critics and left the audiences standing in appreciation and awe. Nike Air Max 270 React Günstig . 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Glamorgan 256 for 7 (Carlson 101*, Morgan 51*, Napier 4-46) v Essex Scorecard Delayed at the start of the day by the absence of Glamorgans equipment from the ground, Essex were delayed at the end by the presence of a record-breaking teenager at the crease. Needing six points to confirm promotion and the Division Two title, Essex managed two in short order before Kiran Carlsons maiden first-class hundred staved off a seemingly inexorable collapse. At 18 years and 119 days, Carlson became the youngest player to score a first-class century for Glamorgan.These are heady days at the ECG but Essex are not yet champions and Carlsons unheralded intervention - his previous best score in four innings was 10 - meant the metaphorical bunting that was being brought out by the time Graham Napiers fourth wicket reduced Glamorgan to 83 for 6 had to be stowed away by the close. As if to compound the frustration Napier, playing in his last home match before retirement, limped off during the afternoon and will have to wait until the morning to find out how much more of a role he can play.A club that have become so used to near misses have embraced their status as frontrunners warily. The Essex members who had seen their team finish third in each of the last three seasons were convinced that, with only one promotion spot available as the ECB whittles away a couple of games from the Championship schedule, this would doubtless be the year they finished second. Three innings wins in a row at the climax of the season - not to mention Kents welcome capitulation against Northamptonshire last week - has grudgingly brought people around.They have become used to waiting, however, and the news that the start would be put back, ultimately by an hour and a half, because Glamorgans kit van was stuck on the A12 was met with ironic chuckles by those Essex fans who had got in early to see every moment of a game that is expected to be a coronation. Bonus points alone could be enough to see Essex go up - they lead Kent, who only have one game left, by 20 points and Sussex by 43 - and this game pitted the team with the most wins in Division Two against the team with the most losses.Napier began the first spell of his final appearance at Chelmsford with two wickets in two balls and it was all beginning to seem disconcertingly easy. It took the contributions of a couple of young Welshmen to give the Essex worry ball a squeeze, as Carlson and Owen Morgan put on an unbroken 129 during the second half of a shortened day. Truly a case of better late than never for Glamorgan.Carlson took a five-for with his offspin on debut at Northamptonshire a couple of weeks ago but this performance, eclipsing that of Mike Llewellyn in 1972, was less of a surprise. Batting at No. 6, he produced several stylish drives and cuts among plenty of watchful accumulation that was capped off by a scampered single to bring up three figures and an ovation from his team-mates on the balcony.I am more of aa batsman, its lovely to get my first hundred under my belt pretty soon into my career, he said.dddddddddddd Its amazing, I cant put into words how I feel. When you start playing cricket, aged seven or eight, you go and watch Glamorgan and think that could be me in a few years. Its great to have Welsh boys doing well.To emphasise the latter point, his team-mate Morgan then went on to conduct an interview in Welsh. Both players gave chances, with Carlson dropped on 67 in the gully by Daniel Lawrence - a sharp catch that would have given Napier his five-for - and coming close to running himself out on 81. Morgan was put down at second slip when he had 7, by Nick Browne off Ravi Bopara, and gave a tough caught-and-bowled opportunity to Jamie Porter when had reached his half-century.Glamorgans young batsmen are making their mark. Carlson was the fourth Glamorgan player aged 22 or under to score a first-class hundred this season and three of them are Welsh born: reasons for pride in a challenging season.After a sorry morning session (which technically began at noon), it appeared losing their bats on the motorway had been Glamorgans best chance of holding Essex up. A great cheer went up from the pavilion when the van was spotted driving in through the gate shortly before 11.30am - an hour after the scheduled start due to an accident on the motorway - and it was as if the Chelmsford regulars knew what was in store.Glamorgan were initially compliant extras. Jacques Rudolph requested a toss, doubtless concluding that the pitch was firm enough and the sun high enough to bankroll a day of batting if only the opening exchanges against the new ball could be won; he and Nick Selman then got through nearly a dozen overs of fretful playing and missing before Napier, the local hero and man for this season of all seasons, took centre stage.His fifth delivery was full and wide - it is probably not a calumny to call it a half-volley - but Rudolphs flailing bat could only deflect a thick edge to second slip. The next ball, to Will Bragg, offered no such margin for error and thudded into the front pad, Steve OShaugnessys front finger duly raised. Graham Gooch, watching on from the executives boxes, might well have repeated his enquiry to Ian Botham in 1986: Who writes your scripts?The slide became 3 for 0 in six balls when Selman was bowled by Porter - Essexs other 50-wicket bowler this year - and although Aneurin Donald stroked Napiers hat-trick delivery through the covers for four, he followed David Lloyd back to the pavilion a couple of overs later as the carefully piloted Glamorgan dirigible plummeted from the cautious optimism of 30 for 0 to the grim reality of 34 for 5. It was all too much for one wag to resist the question: their kit has turned up but have Glamorgan? Time for Carlson and Morgan to deliver a pithy riposte. ' ' '