Many fans believe the league’s most powerful executive cares about making teams money but not so much about the game itself
There are plenty of duties a sports commissioner is responsible for. Perhaps most important is absorbing nonstop criticism while protecting the various team owners whose interests you actually serve. In that case, Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred has been working overtime as pressure mounts over the decision to push through with a 60-game season in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. While Manfred may just be following the will of the owners, who are eager to squeeze value out of their franchises after sports were shut down for months, it’s hard not to look at his actions and wonder if his seeming indifference to the game and its players goes beyond just cold-hearted corporatism. To put it bluntly: it doesn’t seem as if Manfred likes baseball at all.
It’s hard to pinpoint exactly when “Rob Manfred Hates Baseball” went from an internet meme meant to mock the commissioner into a working theory to explain his behavior. The criticism began shortly after he took over from Bud Selig who – despite his many, many failures on the job – always came across as someone with a genuine love for the game. Manfred, on the other hand, came in and immediately began pinpointing all the ways that the league needed to improve: the games were too long, the pace too slow, the rules too stuck in the past.
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