Commissioner: Could Landis Reign Today? -- Baseball Needs Power Figure, But Owners May Pick Figurehead

DALLAS - As Hugh Alexander talked, the words straining slowly, it was plain he still could see him sitting there: frowning, elbows on his desk, palms under his chin. Kenesaw Mountain Landis was a sharp-tongued splinter of a man whose name nevertheless suggested his stature in baseball. No one was bigger. And no one in the sport before or since has been as feared as that little white-haired man behind the big desk.

After a lifetime as one of the most respected scouts in baseball, Alexander has not shaken the vision of Landis, jabbing a bony finger at him, threatening to "get" him.

And the image still scares him, nearly six decades later.

"Gaw-damn," Alexander said, a shudder in his voice. "He was a mean-lookin' old man."

The mark Landis left on baseball is where he grabbed it by the throat. His unbending rule restored the game's credibility after the 1919 World Series scandal, the black eye left by the "Black Sox." To give the brittle Landis weight, the owners granted him unprecedented powers. They even offered to make him "director-general," a title he magnanimously declined. But he hung over baseball's heads like a hammer for nearly a quarter-century, and he remains the most powerful commissioner in the history of the sport.

Landis wouldn't fit

A half century after his death, on Nov. 25, 1944, Landis looms once more when baseball officials say the sport has reached its nadir again. The strike that cost the sport its World Series is every bit as harmful, officials say, as the allegations that a team once threw a World Series.

Landis was the answer then. But does the game need - or would it even accept - someone of his authoritarian style again?

Sports executives in and out of baseball say he wouldn't fit the office anymore. He was baseball's conscience, not its entrepreneur. He didn't have to negotiate television contracts or exploit new marketing avenues, both hallmarks of commissioners such as the NFL's Pete Rozelle and the NBA's David Stern. Those commissioners, as well as Rozelle's successor, Paul Tagliabue, advanced the position to one infinitely more complex than that of a watchdog.

Baseball officials covet the new breed of commissioner, a man like Stern who describes himself as a "consensus-builder." In 10 years, he has risen to become what several sports executives called the best chief executive in sports history.

But critics say that despite its leadership void, baseball will have a difficult time attracting talent like Stern. The sport won't get it, critics say, because of what the owners did to the job description in January.

"My guess is that they don't want anything but a bubble-headed figurehead," said Don Fehr, executive director of baseball's Players Association.

The owners say it isn't so. Acting commissioner Bud Selig, the Milwaukee Brewers' owner, contends that baseball expanded the commissioner's power.

The new commissioner - retiring Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell reportedly is the front-runner for a position vacant more than 26 months, since Fay Vincent's forced resignation - will have the authority to negotiate the owners' side in labor discussions, or he can hire a negotiator.

Lack of interest

But among the powers lost were the "best interests of baseball" power as it pertains to World Series and postseason play, interleague scheduling, alignment of divisions, expansion, sale of teams, relocation, revenue sharing and broadcast agreements.

Asked how he would assess Selig's description, Peter Ueberroth rolled his eyes.

"I think the changes dramatically change the position," said Ueberroth, commissioner from 1984 to 1989. "Basically, the commissioner seems to have no portfolio, power or job. There will be the appearance of more responsibility but substantially less authority."

Ueberroth's response was succinct and promptly rendered when asked whether he would accept the job under its current conditions: "No."

Another mistake made by the owners, Ueberroth said, was the decision to delay the hiring until after the strike. Though Philadelphia Phillies' president Bill Giles said the owners did it "so we can have a new beginning," Ueberroth countered that a sitting commissioner might at least have helped the negotiations. In the face of a season-opening basketball strike, Ueberroth noted, David Stern negotiated a moratorium between labor and owners until after the season.

Baseball's predicament is like that of a restaurant owner who deserts his business for months at a time and doesn't expect it to go into decline, Ueberroth said. Of the four major team sports, only baseball is without a leader, and it shows.

The National Hockey League's first commissioner, Gary Bettman, who was at the center of the league's long lockout, has solidified owners for the first time in 40 years. The NFL's Tagliabue, in his fifth year after succeeding Rozelle, has guaranteed no work stoppage until after the turn of the century. And, with Larry Bird and Magic Johnson gone, Stern may be the biggest star in the NBA, once a "mom-and-pop organization," as one league executive put it.

"A commissioner has to be involved with the potential successes and failures of the league," said Stern, adopting Ueberroth's line. "He has to be involved in all aspects of the operation.

"The correct view of a commissioner is that of a CEO."

Or, as many sports executives see it, the correct view is of someone like David Stern.

Stern leadership

No one has brought a league so far, so fast. When he took over from Larry O'Brien in 1984, Stern found the NBA lacking in television and marketing. Despite emerging stars like Bird and Johnson, the league hadn't yet learned how to take advantage of their names. The NBA was so backward that in the sixth game of the 1980 championship series, when a rookie named Magic led the Los Angeles Lakers to a title over the Philadelphia 76ers, the game was televised only on tape delay.

That was the low point, Stern said. When he took over four years later, the NBA was in the middle of a four-year contract with CBS worth $88 million. It was coming off a two-year, $11 million cable deal.

The NBA's latest TV deals: $1.1 billion over the next four years.

At the news conference in April announcing the new network deal, NBC Sports president Dick Ebersol raved about their unique revenue-sharing agreement. He called it "typical of the leadership of the NBA, which for years has been recognized as being on the cutting edge of progressive and visionary management in sports business."

Anybody who knew David Stern when he started out had no reason to believe he had it in him. He seemed little more than another bright young lawyer in a nice suit.

"David had no marketing experience at all," said Norm Sonju, general manager of the Dallas Mavericks, whom Stern appointed chairman of the league's marketing committee. "But, on the way to work every day, he would study marketing magazines. The same thing with cable. He was one of the quickest learners I've ever seen. But he also had tremendous internal drive."

Everything Stern touched went gold. The league yielded so little in marketing before Stern, Sonju said, that the committee voted not to divide it among the teams.

In 1992-93, NBA marketing made $2.1 billion, plus an additional $220 million from international merchandising.

Nothing turns owners' heads like the sound of someone making money. Even baseball players long have been envious of the marketing done of NBA players. Marketing is one of baseball's biggest concerns, said Giles, whose father, Warren, was president of the National League from 1951 through 1969. Giles called baseball's attempts at marketing "pretty parochial," though he is encouraged by a new plan for the major leagues to hire a vice president in charge of marketing.

But would a vice president do anything to enhance a commissioner's power base in baseball?

Unlike baseball, there is no question where the power lies in the NFL, NBA and NHL, sports executives say.

NFL's PR surge

When Pete Rozelle became the NFL's commissioner in 1960, neither he nor football was No. 1. Baseball still was America's top sport. As for Rozelle, he got the job "because he was a competent young general manager of the Rams and he hadn't made anyone angry," said Tex Schramm, former Dallas Cowboy general manager and one of Rozelle's closest confidantes.

Rozelle, with a background in public relations, "thought in terms of communications and marketing and building the game," Schramm said.

Rozelle built his football empire on television. When he became commissioner, each of the 12 teams had individual television deals. The Baltimore Colts and Pittsburgh Steelers had by far the biggest packages, having jumped from CBS to NBC for a combined $1 million. At the other extreme, the Green Bay Packers were getting $35,000 a year from CBS.

"We were competing with ourselves, in effect," Rozelle said.

He worked out a two-year deal with CBS that, in 1962, paid the 14 teams $4.65 million. Two years later, CBS won a bidding war for $14.1 million.

Television revenues kept going up. Rozelle won with ABC's "Monday Night Football" ("I went to NBC and CBS, but they said they had strong network programming, so they turned it down,") and expanded marketing that included NFL Films and NFL Properties ("When I was with the Rams, NFL Properties was pretty much those bobble-headed dolls.")

Rozelle succeeded because he had vision, Schramm said. And the more money he made for owners, the more power they gave him.

Rozelle declined to offer any foresight for baseball. Baseball's antitrust exemption and powerful player union make its governance different from football or any other sport, he said.

Even so, Rozelle commended his successor, Paul Tagliabue, for doing "a marvelous job" in his strong stand in labor negotiations and other NFL matters.

Tagliabue, also a lawyer, delivered a collective-bargaining agreement that is in effect through the turn of the century. He also orchestrated the NFL's first expansion in 20 years and negotiated a new television deal.

"All sports are billion-dollar businesses now," Schramm said. "You need people who can maximize dollars and the business side, but you also need a person who looks out for the game."

Hockey's attempt

The NHL was looking for someone who could unify the owners. In Bettman, Stern said hockey got the best person available.

Before NHL owners decided to create the position of commissioner, the men who served as president of the NHL "made no bones they just worked for the owners," said Red Fisher, who has covered hockey the past 40 years for the Montreal Gazette. Bettman, one of Stern's top aides for nearly 10 years and the godfather of the NBA salary cap, delivered what NHL owners wanted: a hard line.

They gave Bettman the title of commissioner and the power to go with it, and he has used it. When Mike Keenan left the New York Rangers to coach St. Louis, Bettman fined Keenan and suspended him 60 days.

"He expects the owners to back him up, and they have," Fisher said of Bettman. "For the first time in 40 years, you've got 26 guys who are fully prepared to follow the leader. Bettman has made certain he has the clout to make the final decision.

"This guy is so far out in front in telling owners what he wants done, it's not even close."

It took a while to solve the strike, but Bettman at least is a "focal point," said Donald Fehr, and baseball doesn't want one.

Because he believes baseball wants its commissioner to take a back seat, Fehr said the owners won't make a commitment of power to anyone, particularly someone of Stern's caliber.

"David Stern has a lot of authority," Fehr said, "but that's because the owners gave him power. They won't do that in baseball. They could have gone out and hired someone like that, but they didn't."

Baseball owners, who have lost all but one of their union struggles, want to appear tough, Fehr said. He said the sport's antitrust exemption has allowed owners to take "a much harder line," in negotiations with players.

Texas Ranger President Tom Schieffer is perplexed by such logic. He said the owners' only real benefit from the exemption is that it keeps teams from packing up and moving to other cities in the middle of the night.

Exemption or not, the power bases of various commissioners likely has more to do with owner attitudes and timing.

The NBA and NHL were facing serious financial problems and were ready to make concessions to Stern and Bettman, officials say. Rozelle earned more power as he lined owners' pockets with TV money. And no sport responded more substantially to its crisis than baseball after the Black Sox scandal.

The first boss

Fears about player gambling already were rampant for years before eight Chicago White Sox players were accused of throwing the 1919 World Series. Baseball needed an outsider, critics said. In the Jan. 16, 1919, issue of The Sporting News, an editorial pleaded, ". . . the times demand a change! There is a deep-seated objection, we are told, to a man who happens to be interested in baseball having anything to do with its direction . . ."

By the end of 1920, baseball decided its new direction was Kenesaw Mountain Landis.

Named after the place where his father, a doctor, was injured during the Civil War, Landis was a Chicago district-court judge. Detractors called him flamboyant, a ham, buffoon, an actor. Twice, motions were made to impeach him as judge. Jack Lait, editor of the New York Daily Mirror, wrote after Landis' death that he was an "irascible, short-tempered, tyrannical despot," most of whose major judgments were overruled.

What made him likable, as far as the owners were concerned, was his disposition on a case involving the Federal League. The upstart league challenged the majors. When Federal League officials sued to have their case centralized in 1915, the issue came before Landis' district.

He made no ruling for 11 months. He hoped baseball would work out its own problems, and it did. The Federal League folded before World War I.

As the sport's first commissioner, Landis played good cop, bad cop with impunity. He was hard on players. Besides banning the eight White Sox players accused of fixing the World Series, he went after others. In two dozen years in office, he would take on some of the game's biggest names, including Ty Cobb and Tris Speaker.

He was tough on owners, too. In asides to reporters, he often made sarcastic remarks about owners. He was even tougher on their wallets.

One of Hugh Alexander's most vivid memories was how Landis handled owners who, in effect, tried to make slaves of their players.

"We wouldn't mistreat players," said Alexander, a scout at 20 for the Cleveland Indians in 1937 and now a consultant with the Chicago Cubs. "We'd just violate their contracts. It was awful. A lot of players thought they were signed and weren't."

In one of those cases, Landis called Alexander and his boss, Cleveland General Manager Cy Slapnicka, to his office. Landis couldn't prove anything. But he warned Slapnicka, "I'm gonna try to get you before I get out of baseball."

Then, turning to Alexander, he said, "And if you keep tagging along with Slapnicka, I'm going to get you, too."

Power outage

The approach eventually wore on baseball. After Landis' death, the owners drained power from the position.

They wasted no time. In Kentucky Sen. Albert B. "Happy" Chandler's term as commissioner, baseball was integrated, a process Landis fought. But, according to John Helyar's "Lords of the Realm," Chandler botched baseball's first big TV deal in 1949, and the owners forced him out two years later.

Besides Chandler, Landis' successors included a former sportswriter, Ford Frick, and a general, William Eckert. The owners at least admitted they made a mistake on the latter. In voting, several owners thought they were considering General Eugene Zuckert, former Secretary of the Air Force. At the announcement of Eckert's hiring, one bewildered sportswriter said, "They've hired the unknown soldier."

According to Helyar, Eckert once addressed a group of baseball men with a speech intended for the Retired Airline Pilots Association.

Of all baseball's commissioners, only Ueberroth, the brains behind the financially successful 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, had skills that fit what baseball now wants. He negotiated baseball's best television contract to date and increased marketing of the sport. He also helped in removing a stigma of drug abuse in the game.

The black mark on Ueberroth's resume was collusion. An arbitrator fined the owners $260 million after finding they conspired to hold down player salaries in the late 1980s. In 1989, Ueberroth resigned when it became clear he was not going to be re-elected.

In the fall of 1992, baseball's owners made their displeasure more obvious in the case of Vincent, who resigned after his owners voted for his removal.

Among Vincent's sins, in the eyes of the owners, was his suspension of repeat drug offender Steve Howe; his opening of training camps in the lockout of 1990; his attempts at realignment, and, most grievously, repeated efforts to invoke his power "in the best interests of baseball."

The owners rebuffed him on each front. At his resignation, he issued a statement that read, "I cannot govern as commissioner without the consent of owners to be governed. I do not believe that consent is now available to me."

Owners seemed to develop contempt for the position. Asked in the fall of 1992 if Selig might seek the commissioner's job on a permanent basis, John McMullen, owner of the Houston Astros, said it "would be an act of total idiocy."

"The office has simply changed," Schieffer said. "Now, with the strength of the union, it's hamstrung. It requires different leadership skills."

The game needs someone "to come in and restore the fan's faith in the game . . . someone to be in charge," Schieffer said.

Which direction?

A Kenesaw Mountain Landis no longer is the answer. A David Stern is. Ueberroth called Stern "arguably the best commissioner in sports since World War II. He and Pete Rozelle are in a class by themselves."

Ueberroth said baseball's best hope is that someone qualified takes the job because of its prestige or for the love of the game. Little else is attractive about the job, he said. Phoenix Suns' president Jerry Colangelo, heading up an Arizona group seeking an expansion baseball franchise, said a strong baseball commissioner "doesn't exist and it should."

Strength simply is measured in different terms today than it was 50 years ago, in Landis' era.

Stern is as powerful as Landis was. He just hits owners in their wallet, a far larger target than it was 10 years ago. Asked if he instructs his owners to remain low key, Stern, who has threatened a $1 million fine for any owner who violates a gag order on the labor issue, laughed.

"I never instruct my owners to do anything," he said. "I like to think of myself as a consensus-builder. I've been involved with the league in some capacity for 27 years. So I often say I not only know where the bodies are buried, I've used a few shovels of dirt myself."

The trick is: he does it without getting dirty.