Who'd want a job laden with politics and ugly events that roil out of your control--one in which you have to deal with a fickle, angry and impossible-to-satisfy constituency?

          I'm not talking about the Presidency.      I'm describing the post of Major League Baseball Commissioner.

         Bud Selig loves the job, but it doesn't seem to like him very much.

         He dealt with a devastating strike that forced him to cancel the 1994 World Series.       Jilted fans ignored the game when it returned the following summer.     Only the home run chase featuring Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa rekindled interest, but even that turned out to have been tainted by steroids, a period whose stench lingered into the previous postseason.           When Selig's beloved Milwaukee got to host the All-Star game at Miller Park, chuckleheaded game management led to Selig having to call the contest with the score tied.        To give the game meaning, he assigned World Series homefield advantage to the outcome and continually gets ripped for it.

         Now comes the 46 hour rain delay in Philadelphia.       Somehow, the Commissioner is getting blamed for the fact that there's precipitation in Pennsylvania in October.

         His enemies say Monday night's fifth game never should've started.       Others say he should've suspended the game sooner, rather than waiting until the Rays were able to tie the score at 2 heading into the bottom of the sixth.       Some are now insisting that the Fall Classic be moved to a warm, dry neutral site.         And, there's always the militant fringe that maintains the entire sport would be better if Selig would just...go...away.

        About Monday night: the only person at fault is the meteorologist the Commissioner was consulting.       While others in the Philadelphia area apparently had the right weather call, Selig's people told him the area was in for a tenth of an inch of rain, if that.     Wow--Selig got bad weather advice.      That NEVER happens to us regular civilians, does it?       Fire the weather guy?      Yes,     Blame the Commish?      No.

        What Selig needs to do is forget the ill-conceived notion of moving the Series from the home towns of the pennant winners (don't even discuss it--just be gone with it) and put in writing an expanded Selig Doctrine: all postseason games MUST go nine innings.      No one wins a playoff tilt, much less a series or a championship, via a weather call.     

        Events of this past week have also renewed the call for a shorter baseball season--not gonna happen, not with owners needing every revenue-generating event they can find.         They won't cut games, or do doubleheaders.      And, the last time I checked, it rains in summer, too.       Precipitation happens all the time.      It's how you deal with it that matters.       The cold?      Yes, average temperatures drop as October grows late.     Then again, it's 67 degrees as I write this at lunch on October 31st.       Had the Brewers won the National League pennant and if the N-L had won the All Star game, and IF the Fall classic had gone seven games, the Miller Park lid just might've been open tonight for a deciding World Series game.         Just sayin'.

        Critics bemoan the lack of national television interest in the just-completed Phils/Rays set.        That's not on Selig, either.      Blame time, and changes in people's tastes.       To purists and baseball romantics like Bob Costas and Keith Olberman, the World Series remains the sporting world's penultimate event.          But it's not 1955 anymore.       Tastes changed.      The games are in prime time now, where the ad rates are higher and the competition stiffer.        Fans have allegiances to their home teams, but none to a championship series that doesn't include their favorite club.        They'll watch people jump through holes in walls first.      The world was a simpler place 50 years ago.       TV was primitive, with few offerings.        A ballgame on the tube was unique.      Now, it's just another prime time offering.          The NFL was still in it's infancy.      The NBA was a non-factor.       Boxing offered more competition.     Even horse racing.

         Selig and the owners who hire him may just have to concede that theirs is a niche game--loved by a fiercely loyal lot that'll watch any World Series no matter who is in it and attended by bazillions of in-person fans during the regular season who love the atmosphere, food, booze and amenities of the modern game but really don't bother looking at the scoreboard very often, unless they're on the kiss-cam.        Baseball makes it's money on the marginal fan.         It's followed ardently by a loud but shrinking mob.

         Accept that, Major League Baseball, and don't promise more than you can deliver to the networks.        Don't compare past numbers with what you're getting now in the Nielsens.       Go qualitative in your ratings, not quantitative.        Tell sponsors who your fans are, not how many you have.      Super-serve the niche.        It's the 21st century.       Think mixed martial arts.      The country won't come to a standstill for one of it's major matches, but it gives advertisers the audience they seek.    

         The problems are many, and answers are hard in coming.      Some are obvious.     Others are obscure.      Bud Selig has been right more than he's been wrong during his stewardship, and I think history will rank him among the great Commissioners.

         He's done a good job with a game that a lot of us love, holding a post few if any would want to have.