Kenesaw Mountain Landis (1920–1944) Having agreed to appoint only non-baseball men to the National Commission, the owners tapped federal judge
Kenesaw Mountain Landis, an ardent baseball fan, to serve as the reformed commission's chairman. Landis responded by declaring that he would only accept an appointment as sole commissioner, with nearly unlimited authority to act in the "best interests of baseball" – in essence, serving as an arbitrator whose decisions could not be appealed. Finally, Landis insisted on a lifetime contract. The owners, still reeling from the perception that the sport was crooked, readily agreed.
Gambling Landis's first significant act was to deal with the
Black Sox scandal. Following a trial, the eight players suspected of involvement in the fix were acquitted. Nevertheless, immediately following the players' acquittal, Landis
banned them all from baseball for life. He famously declared, "Regardless of the verdict of juries, no player who throws a ballgame, no player that undertakes or promises to throw a ballgame, no player that sits in conference with a bunch of crooked players and gamblers where the ways and means of throwing a game are discussed and does not promptly tell his club about it, will ever play professional baseball." Landis explained that even though the players had all been acquitted in court, there was no dispute that they had broken the rules of baseball. Therefore, he maintained that none of them could be allowed back in the game if its image was to be restored with the public. Among those banned were
Buck Weaver and superstar
Shoeless Joe Jackson, who have generally been viewed to be far less culpable compared to the other six accused. Landis' position was that he had no doubt that Weaver and Jackson at the very least knew about the fix, and failed to report it, and that this alone was grounds for permanent banishment. Over the years, he dealt harshly with others proven to have thrown individual games, consorted with gamblers, or engaged in actions that he felt tarnished the image of the game. Among the others he banned were
New York Giants players
Phil Douglas and
Jimmy O'Connell,
Philadelphia Phillies pitcher
Gene Paulette, Giants coach
Cozy Dolan, and (in 1943) Phillies owner
William D. Cox. He also formalized the unofficial banishments of
Hal Chase and
Heinie Zimmerman. In 1921, he banned Giants center fielder
Benny Kauff even though he had been acquitted of involvement in a car theft ring. Nonetheless, Landis was convinced Kauff was guilty and argued that players of "undesirable reputation and character" had no place in baseball.
An independent commissioner's office The owners had initially assumed that Landis would deal with the Black Sox Scandal and then settle into a comfortable retirement as the titular head of baseball. Instead, Landis ruled baseball with an iron hand for the next 25 years. He established a fiercely independent commissioner's office that would go on to often make both players and owners miserable with decisions that he argued were in the best interests of the game. He worked to clean up the
hooliganism that was tarnishing the reputation of players in the 1920s. Without a union to represent them, the players had no meaningful recourse to challenge Landis' virtually unchecked authority. On the other hand, Landis inserted his office into negotiations with players, where he deemed appropriate, to put an end to a few of the more egregious labor practices that had contributed to the players' discontent. He also personally approved broadcasters for the World Series. Landis's only significant rival in the early years was longtime American League founder and president
Ban Johnson, who had been reckoned as the most powerful man in the game before Landis's arrival. Johnson was as strong-willed as Landis, and a clash between the two was inevitable. It happened in the
1924 World Series. When several Giants were implicated in a plan to bribe players on the moribund Phillies late in the season, Johnson demanded that the Series be canceled, and loudly criticized Landis's handling of the affair, to which Landis responded by threatening to resign. The American League owners promised to throw Johnson out of office if he stepped out of line again.
Two years later, when Johnson criticized Landis's decision to give
Ty Cobb and
Tris Speaker an amnesty after it surfaced they had bet on a fixed game in 1919, Landis told the American League owners to choose between him and Johnson. The owners promptly sent Johnson on a sabbatical from which he never really returned.
The baseball color line Landis perpetuated the
color line and prolonged the segregation of organized baseball. His successor,
Happy Chandler, said, "For twenty-four years Judge Landis wouldn't let a black man play. I had his records, and I read them, and for twenty-four years Landis consistently blocked any attempts to put blacks and whites together on a big league field."
Bill Veeck claimed Landis prevented him from purchasing the Phillies when Landis learned of Veeck's plan to integrate the team. The signing of the first black ballplayer in the modern era,
Jackie Robinson, came less than a year after Landis's death on Chandler's watch and was engineered by one of Landis's old nemeses,
Branch Rickey. Eleven weeks after Robinson's debut with the
Brooklyn Dodgers, Veeck became the first American League owner to break the color line.
Curbing the growth of minor league farm systems Landis tried to curb the growth of
minor league farm systems by innovators such as Rickey, in the name of protecting the lower levels of professional ball. Landis argued that because a parent club could unilaterally call up players from teams that were involved in pennant races, the organization was unfairly interfering with the minor competitions. His position was that the championship of each minor league was of no less importance than the championships of the major leagues and that minor league fans and supporters had the right to see their teams competing as best they could. On the other hand, the decisive factor resulting in the eventual entrenchment of the modern farm system was not Landis' demise but rather the growing presence of MLB on television, which caused attendances in the minor leagues to collapse and left these clubs in a precarious financial position that would have made Landis' position untenable in any case. Moreover, Landis prevented the formation of a powerful third major league when he stopped
Pants Rowland from upgrading the
Pacific Coast League in the 1940s. Furthermore, (and despite the fact that, insofar as he was accountable at all, it was strictly to major league owners) Landis did not hesitate to aggressively use the powers of his office to force the minor leagues and their clubs to submit to his authority in a number of ways. Most notably, he uncompromisingly held to a policy that dictated any minor league player who knowingly played with or against a player banned by Major League Baseball would himself be banned from MLB for life. This threat effectively compelled every minor league to rigidly honor and enforce suspensions handed down by Landis in their competitions as well. Nevertheless, some players banned by Landis are believed to have continued playing under assumed identities at the minor league or semi-professional level. One of the schemes Landis vigorously fought was the effort by major-league teams to "cover up" players they were hiding in their farm systems. The term, not used in formal communications by the league or team officials, referred to players clandestinely signed by a major-league team to a minor-league contract. Occasionally one team would serendipitously find such a player in the off-season draft, as in this occasion recorded in the book
Dodger Daze and Knights: All the clubowners and managers, and Commissioner Landis, were assembled to conduct the draft. One team representative said he "claim[s] Player Paul Richards (baseball)|[Paul] Richards of Brooklyn". "You can't do that!" barked a surprised
Wilbert Robinson, manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers. "Why not?" asked Landis. "Because Brooklyn has him covered up", sputtered Robbie. Most of the others broke down laughing. Even Landis smirked.
Legacy and honors Whether his decisions were praised or criticized, he was satisfied with being respected and feared. Dubbed "the baseball tyrant" by journalists of the day, his rule was absolute. In the context of ensuring the integrity of the game itself, baseball historians generally regard him as the right man at the right time when appointed, but also as a man who perhaps held office too long. He was elected to the
Baseball Hall of Fame in
1944, in a special election held one month after his death, and the
Most Valuable Player Award in each league was officially known as the Kenesaw Mountain Landis Award in his honor until 2020, following complaints from past MVP winners about Landis's role in stonewalling racial integration.
Happy Chandler (1945–1951) When Judge Landis died in 1944, an official in the
War Department began campaigning for Senator
Happy Chandler's election to the post. Despite being the last candidate put forth in the April
1945 meetings, he was elected by a unanimous vote of the team owners, and resigned his Senate seat in October of that year. Chandler clashed with Brooklyn Dodgers manager
Leo "the Lip" Durocher over Durocher's association with gambling figures and his marriage to actress
Laraine Day, which came amid allegations from Day's ex-husband that Durocher had stolen her away from him. Before the start of the 1947 season, Chandler suspended Durocher for the entire season, citing "conduct detrimental to baseball". The Dodgers went on to win the pennant that season under replacement manager
Burt Shotton. During his service, he presided over the establishment of a pension fund for players and oversaw the initial steps toward
integration of the major leagues, beginning with the debut of
Jackie Robinson with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947. This move was controversial with team owners, who voted 15–1 against integrating the sport in a secret January 1947 meeting. The Dodgers'
Branch Rickey met with Chandler, who agreed to back the team's move. Chandler's stance was credited by many in the sports community with Chandler's failure to be selected for another term as commissioner after the expiration of his first one in
1951. Chandler was fully aware that he was jeopardizing his own commissionership by stewarding the integration process. Chandler's attitude was a simple one, which he conveyed to Branch Rickey, and later recounted in his autobiography:I've already done a lot of thinking about this whole racial situation in our country. As a member of the Senate Military Affairs Committee, I got to know a lot about our casualties during the war. Plenty of Negro boys were willing to go out and fight and die for this country. Is it right when they came back to tell them they can't play the national pastime? You know, Branch, I'm going to have to meet my Maker some day. And if He asks me why I didn't let this boy play, and I say it's because he's black, that might not be a satisfactory answer. If the Lord made some people black, and some white, and some red or yellow, he must have had a pretty good reason. It isn't my job to decide which colors can play big league baseball. It is my job to see that the game is fairly played and that everybody has an equal chance. I think if I do that, I can face my Maker with a clear conscience.
Ford Frick (1951–1965) In , National League president
Ford Frick succeeded Happy Chandler as commissioner of baseball. Frick's critics accused him of favoring the National League in his rulings, such as how the 1960s expansion teams would be stocked. Frick's most well-known statement as commissioner was made in 1961 when several players were on a pace to break
Babe Ruth's single-season home run record. In a press conference, Frick stated that the single-season home run record should be separated into multiple lists, based on the length of a season. (Frick has at times been credited with the saying that there should be an asterisk to differentiate between the two records, but this was actually first suggested by
New York Daily News writer
Dick Young). However, as MLB did not publish an official record book at the time, Frick had no control over how publishers presented MLB records, and within a few years after
Roger Maris broke Ruth's record, all record books gave Maris sole credit as the single-season home run record holder. Later, it was revealed that Frick had served as a
ghostwriter for Ruth earlier in his career. Although Frick did not initially express strong opposition to the establishment of the
Continental League, a proposed third major league, he quietly encouraged the established Major League owners to offer franchises to several markets in which the proposed league planned to play through expansion and relocation. In doing so, he successfully caused the Continental League to fold without ever playing a game.
William Eckert (1965–1968) More than 150 names appeared on the original list of nominees for the commissionership following
Ford Frick's retirement. The club owners initially were unable to decide if the next commissioner should come from within the ranks of the game as Frick had, or from elsewhere like Frick's two predecessors had. They finally decided that the new commissioner should have a strong business background to deal with the problems that were confronting the game at the time. Retired
US Army LTG William Eckert became a serious candidate for the commissionership only after fellow
general officer Curtis LeMay gave Major League Baseball a recommendation for him. On November 17,
1965, by a unanimous vote of the then-20 major league club owners, William Eckert became the fourth commissioner of Major League Baseball. When he became commissioner, Eckert had not seen a game in person in over 10 years. He was a compromise choice for the job, previously being so obscure that sportswriters nicknamed him "the Unknown Soldier". During the
1968 season, Eckert incurred the public's ire by refusing to cancel exhibition games after the April
assassination of Martin Luther King nor regular-season games after the June
assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, while also incurring team owners' disdain because he refused to deal forcefully with substantive business issues. Anticipating a
players' strike and having no ownership confidence in his ability to handle the situation, Eckert was forced to resign at the end of the 1968 season, although he still had three years on his contract. In spite of his much-publicized failures and shortcomings, William Eckert also developed more effective committee actions, streamlined business methods, and helped stabilize franchises with bigger stadiums and long-term leases. In addition, Eckert worked hard toward promoting the game internationally, including a
1966 post-World Series tour of Japan by the National League champion
Los Angeles Dodgers.
Bowie Kuhn (1969–1984) Bowie Kuhn's tenure was marked by labor
strikes (most notably in
1981), owner disenchantment, and the end of baseball's
reserve clause, yet baseball enjoyed unprecedented attendance gains (from 23 million in to 45.5 million in ) and
television contracts during the same time frame. Kuhn suspended numerous players for involvement with drugs and gambling, and took a strong stance against any activity that he perceived to be "not in the best interests of baseball". In , he suspended star
Detroit Tigers pitcher
Denny McLain indefinitely (the suspension was later set at 3 months) due to McLain's involvement in a
bookmaking operation, and later suspended McLain for the rest of the season for carrying a gun. Among his more controversial decisions was to bar both
Willie Mays (in ) and
Mickey Mantle (in ) from the sport due to their involvement in
casino promotion. Neither was directly involved in gambling, moreover the casinos they worked for did not even offer
sports betting, let alone betting on baseball (this
was not legalized in New Jersey until 2012). Mays and Mantle were reinstated by Kuhn's successor
Peter Ueberroth in . Also in 1970, Kuhn described
Jim Bouton's
Ball Four as "detrimental to baseball" and demanded that Bouton retract it. The book has been republished several times and is now considered a classic. On October 13, , the
World Series held a night game for the first time. Kuhn, who thought that baseball could attract a larger audience by featuring a
prime time telecast (as opposed to a mid-afternoon broadcast, when most fans either worked or attended school), pitched the idea to
NBC. An estimated 61 million people watched Game 4 on NBC; TV
ratings for a World Series game during the daytime hours would not have approached such a record number. Kuhn's vision in this instance has been fulfilled, as all the World Series games
since 1988 have been played in prime time.
Curt Flood On October 7, , the
St. Louis Cardinals traded
Curt Flood, catcher
Tim McCarver, outfielder
Byron Browne, and left-handed pitcher
Joe Hoerner to the
Philadelphia Phillies for first baseman
Dick Allen, second baseman
Cookie Rojas, and right-handed ace relief pitcher
Jerry Johnson. However, Flood refused to report to the moribund Phillies, citing the team's poor record and the fact that they played in dilapidated
Connie Mack Stadium before belligerent and, Flood believed,
racist fans. Flood forfeited a relatively lucrative US$100,000 (equivalent to $ in ) contract by his refusal to be traded to the Phillies. In a letter to Kuhn, Flood demanded that the commissioner declare him a
free agent. Kuhn denied Flood's request to enter free agency, citing the propriety of the
reserve clause, which was language in contracts that essentially prevented a player from playing with another team even after his contract expired. In response, Flood filed a lawsuit against Kuhn and Major League Baseball on January 16, , alleging that Major League Baseball had violated federal
antitrust laws. Even though Flood was making $90,000 (equivalent to $ in ) at the time, he likened the reserve clause to
slavery. It was certainly a controversial analogy, even among those who opposed the reserve clause. The case,
Flood v. Kuhn (407 U.S. 258) eventually went to the
Supreme Court. Flood's attorney, former Supreme Court justice
Arthur Goldberg, asserted that the reserve clause was depressing wages, and it limited players to one team for life. Major League Baseball's counsel countered that Commissioner Kuhn acted under the way he did "for the good of the game". Ultimately, the Supreme Court, acting on
stare decisis "to stand by things decided", ruled 5–3 in favor of Major League Baseball, upholding a ruling in the case of
Federal Baseball Club v. National League (259 U.S. 200).
Charles O. Finley Though he had a reputation as an owners' commissioner, Kuhn did not avoid confronting owners when he deemed it necessary. For example, he was a major adversary of
Oakland Athletics owner
Charles O. Finley. A major embarrassment for baseball resulted from Finley's actions during the
1973 World Series. Finley forced player
Mike Andrews to sign a false
affidavit saying he was injured after the reserve infielder committed two consecutive
errors in the 12th inning of Oakland's Game 2 loss to the
New York Mets. Andrews' teammates as well as manager
Dick Williams rallied to his defense. Kuhn in return forced Finley to reinstate Andrews. In , when Finley attempted to sell several players to the Boston Red Sox and
New York Yankees for $3.5 million, Kuhn blocked the deals on the grounds that they would be bad for the game. Some believe that Kuhn's actions were simply a revenge tactic, aimed at Finley, after Finley attempted to force an owners vote to remove Kuhn as commissioner in .
Kuhn's war on drugs After being in office for over ten years, Kuhn had grown a strong reputation for being particularly hard on players who
abused drugs. Kuhn was quick to punish players who used drugs with heavy fines and big suspensions.
Kansas City Royals catcher
Darrell Porter told the
Associated Press that during the winter of – he became
paranoid, convinced that Kuhn knew about his drug abuse, was trying to sneak into his house, and planned to ban him from baseball for life. Porter found himself sitting up at night in the dark watching out the front window, waiting for Kuhn to approach, clutching billiard balls, and a shotgun. Ironically, when Porter was named the most valuable player of the
1982 World Series while playing for the Cardinals, Kuhn was on hand to congratulate him. In , four players from the
Kansas City Royals –
Willie Wilson,
Jerry Martin,
Willie Mays Aikens, and
Vida Blue – were found guilty of
cocaine use. In addition, such established stars as
Ferguson Jenkins,
Keith Hernandez,
Dave Parker, and
Dale Berra admitted to having problems with drugs.
Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle Hall of Famers
Willie Mays and
Mickey Mantle were banned in 1980 and 1983 respectively after they were hired by casinos in
Atlantic City, New Jersey, as greeters and autograph signers. These bans were highly controversial at the time since both players were retired and both in no way involved in baseball at the time, and because neither player's duties were related in any way to sports betting, which was still illegal at the time in New Jersey in any case, let alone betting on baseball. Nevertheless, Kuhn stood firm and opined that a casino was "no place for a baseball hero and Hall of Famer." The bans took place prior to the Hall formalizing its policy against inducting banned persons, and the Hall took no action as a result of Kuhn's decision. Both players were reinstated by Kuhn's successor in 1985.
Lifetime baseball passes In , during the
Iranian hostage crisis, Kuhn sat at a baseball game with
Jeremiah Denton, a Navy admiral and former
POW in
Vietnam who would be elected U.S. senator later that year from the state of
Alabama. Recalling the event to
The Washington Post, Kuhn believed that "that afternoon ... the idea of a lifetime baseball pass was discussed", and upon their return from Iran, each of the 52 hostages was given one of these unique passes.
Leaving office Kuhn was both praised and attacked for the firm stand that he levied against offenders. In , some of the owners organized a move to push him out of office. In , Kuhn and his supporters made a last-ditch effort to renew his contract, but they ultimately failed. Kuhn, though, was allowed to stay for the regular season before being replaced by Peter Ueberroth.
Peter Ueberroth (1984–1989) Peter Ueberroth was elected to succeed Bowie Kuhn on March 3, 1984, and took office on October 1 of that year. As a condition of his hiring, Ueberroth increased the commissioner's fining ability from US$5,000 to $250,000. His salary was raised to a reported $450,000, nearly twice what Kuhn was paid. Just as Ueberroth was taking office the Major League Umpires Union was threatening to
strike the postseason. Ueberroth managed to arbitrate the disagreement and had the umpires back to work before the
League Championship Series were over. The next summer, Ueberroth worked behind the scenes to limit a players' strike to one day before a new labor agreement was worked out with the
Players Association (MLBPA). During the course of his stint as commissioner, Ueberroth reinstated
Hall of Famers Willie Mays and
Mickey Mantle, who had been banned from working for Major League Baseball by Kuhn because of their associations with gambling casinos. Also, Ueberroth
suspended numerous players because of
cocaine use, negotiated a $1.1 billion
television contract with
CBS, and initiated the investigation against
Pete Rose's
betting habits. In
1985, Ueberroth's first full year in office, the League Championship Series expanded from a best-of-five series to a best-of-seven series. At his urging, the
Chicago Cubs chose to install lights at
Wrigley Field rather than reimburse the leagues for lost night-game revenues. Ueberroth then found a new source of income in the form of persuading large corporations to pay for the privilege of having their products endorsed by Major League Baseball. However, Ueberroth, with the assistance of the owners, also facilitated
collusion, an illegal violation of the league's collective bargaining agreement with the players, during the 1985, 1986 and 1987 off-seasons. Players entering free-agency were prevented from both signing equitable contracts and joining the teams of their choice during this period, a strategy that union leader
Marvin Miller later held was "tantamount to fixing, not just games, but entire pennant races, including all post-season series". The MLBPA filed
collusion charges, arguing that Ueberroth and team owners had violated the collective bargaining agreement in the
1985,
1986, and
1987 seasons. The MLBPA won each case, resulting in "second look" free agents, and over $280 million in owner fines.
Fay Vincent, who followed Ueberroth's successor in the commissioner's office, laid the crippling labor problems of the early 1990s directly at the feet of Ueberroth and the owners' collusion, holding that the collusion years constituted theft from the players. Giamatti was commissioner on August 24, when Pete Rose voluntarily agreed to permanent ineligibility from baseball. As reflected in the agreement with Pete Rose, Giamatti was determined to maintain the integrity of the game during his brief commissionership. On September 1, 1989, at his vacation home on
Martha's Vineyard, Giamatti, a heavy
smoker for many years, died suddenly of a massive
heart attack at the age of 51. Giamatti died just eight days after banishing Rose and 154 days into his tenure as MLB commissioner. He became the second baseball commissioner to die in office, the first being Kenesaw Mountain Landis.
Fay Vincent (1989–1992) Fay Vincent, who had assumed the position of deputy commissioner underneath and at the behest of his longtime friend Giamatti,
Vincent's relationship with the owners His relationship with baseball's owners was always tenuous at best; he resigned in
1992 after the owners gave him an 18–9 no-confidence vote. The owners were still angry at Vincent over his intervention during the 1990 Spring Training lockout, which subsequently cancelled Spring Training that year and pushed the regular season back three days. The owners were also disappointed by dwindling television
ratings in light of a US$1.1 billion,
four-year deal with
CBS (which ultimately cost the network $500 million) beginning in 1990 (Vincent's first full season as commissioner) and upwardly spiraling salaries. (It is also important to note that CBS itself contributed to decreasing ratings thanks to the haphazard scheduling of
Game of the Week broadcasts during the regular season to the point that fans grew tired of tuning into no baseball on summer Saturdays.) They also accused him of acting in a high-handed manner, especially in the Howe affair. The leaders in the movement to oust Vincent were members of what
The Sporting News later dubbed "The Great Lakes Gang": •
Bud Selig, president of the
Milwaukee Brewers; •
Jerry Reinsdorf, chairman of the
Chicago White Sox; • Stanton Cook, head of the
Tribune Co., which owned the
Chicago Cubs; •
Carl Pohlad, owner of the
Minnesota Twins; •
Peter O'Malley, the longtime majority owner of the
Los Angeles Dodgers In his farewell, Vincent said He was replaced by
Milwaukee Brewers owner Bud Selig, whose family continued to maintain ownership over the Brewers. Fay Vincent was never able to complete the five-year term that he had inherited from Bart Giamatti. Vincent would later contend that Major League Baseball made a huge mistake by not appointing his deputy commissioner
Stephen Greenberg – the son of the
Hall of Fame first baseman and left fielder
Hank Greenberg – as the commissioner.
Bud Selig (1992–2015) Bud Selig served as the Executive Council chairman from 1992 to 1998, acting as the commissioner, and then was appointed as the official commissioner in 1998. Selig oversaw baseball through the
1994 strike, the introduction of the wild card,
interleague play, and the merging of the National and American leagues under the Office of the Commissioner. He was instrumental in organizing the
World Baseball Classic in 2006. He is credited for the financial turnaround of baseball during his tenure with a 400 percent increase in the revenue of MLB and annual record breaking attendance. Following the release of the Mitchell Report, Congressman
Cliff Stearns called publicly for Selig to step down as commissioner, citing his "glacial response" to the "growing stain on baseball". Bud Selig helped introduce the following changes to Major League Baseball: • Realignment of teams into three divisions per league, and the introduction of playoff
wild card teams: one per league starting in 1994, and two per league starting in 2012 • Regular season
interleague play (1997) and interleague games during the entire season (2013) • Four additional franchises: the
Colorado Rockies and Florida Marlins (now
Miami Marlins) in 1993, followed by the
Arizona Diamondbacks and Tampa Bay Devil Rays (now
Tampa Bay Rays) in 1998. • An
unbalanced schedule formula that heavily favors intradivisional play (2001) • Consolidation of the
National and
American League offices and presidencies under the direct auspices of Major League Baseball and inclusion of all
umpiring crews into a common pool for American and National League games, instead of having separate pools per league • Home field advantage in the
World Series granted to the winner of the
All Star Game in the same season (2003, changed in 2017 to not have an influence on
home-field advantage in the World Series) • Relocation of
Montreal Expos franchise to Washington, D.C., becoming the
Washington Nationals (2005) • Stricter
Major League Baseball performance-enhancing drug testing policy (2005) •
World Baseball Classic (2006) •
Instant replay used by umpiring crew to review disputed
home run calls (2008). Expanded to all calls (except balls and strikes) starting in 2014. During Selig's years of service, new stadiums opened in
Atlanta,
Cincinnati,
Cleveland,
Colorado,
Detroit,
Houston,
Miami,
Milwaukee,
Philadelphia,
Phoenix,
Pittsburgh,
San Diego,
San Francisco,
Seattle,
Arlington,
St. Louis,
Washington, D.C.,
Queens,
The Bronx, and
Minneapolis. In addition, the venues now known as
Angel Stadium in
Anaheim,
Fenway Park in
Boston, and
Kauffman Stadium in
Kansas City underwent major renovations, and
similar work began on
Wrigley Field in
Chicago. Selig retired from the position after the season, officially yielding to his successor on January 25, 2015, at which time Selig became the Commissioner Emeritus of Baseball.
Rob Manfred (2015–present) Rob Manfred was elected as the 10th commissioner of baseball on August 14, 2014. Manfred, who has worked full-time for Major League Baseball since 1998, was elected on the third ballot after falling one vote short of the 23 vote (3/4 super-majority) threshold on the first two ballots. It was baseball's first contested commissioner election in 46 years as
Chicago White Sox owner
Jerry Reinsdorf and
Los Angeles Angels owner
Arte Moreno led a group in support of Boston Red Sox chairman
Tom Werner, who they felt would take a tougher stance against the players in labor negotiations. Manfred's tenure has seen numerous changes to the game. In 2017, the
intentional walk was changed, with pitchers no longer having to throw four balls to walk the batter, instead signaling to the bench. In 2020, during the COVID-shortened 60 game season, Manfred instituted further changes: the universal designated hitter rule (which became a full-time rule in the National League in 2022), a three-batter minimum for relief pitchers, using an automatic runner (often referred to by fans and the media as a "ghost runner" or "Manfred man") at second base to start each extra inning, and shortening double headers to two seven-inning games rather than nine innings each. In 2023, further rule changes saw limits placed on defensive shifting, enlarging the bases from 15 inches to 18 inches, and the adoption of a pitch clock, requiring pitchers to throw a pitch no later than every 15 seconds with bases empty and 20 seconds with runners on base. While these changes have been polarizing, further criticism has been levied against Manfred for his seemingly "lackluster" punishments for the
Houston Astros sign stealing scandal, including his highly-publicized comment in 2020 that the
World Series trophy was "a piece of metal", moving the
2021 Major League Baseball All-Star Game from
Atlanta to
Denver in the face of Georgia's new voting laws, and his role in the
2021–22 Major League Baseball lockout, the league's first work stoppage in 27 years. On May 13, 2025, Manfred announced that individuals would be removed from the
permanent ineligible list upon their deaths and lifted the extant bans on all deceased players, including
Shoeless Joe Jackson and
Pete Rose, which also makes them eligible for induction into the
Baseball Hall of Fame. == Owners' "coup" ==