Power Pros Forum

“No,” said Selig. Part being disbelief, part being a refusal. “No,” he repeated, “I’m not going to retire. Why would they want me to retire anyway? I’m great! And it’s not even like I said I was going to retire two years ago and still haven't or anything. Besides, who would replace me?”

“Sir, they’ve already got a replacement lined up,” Linda replied.

“Who the hell could possibly be better than me?!” screamed Selig.

“Anybody.”

“WHAT?!” Selig’s face turned beet red. He looked ready to start firing people left and right.

“No sir, that’s the man’s name. Roger Anybody. He was a manager for a while. I think with the Rangers, back in the early 80’s. He then was the owner of the Pirates from 1999-2006.”

“Sounds like a loser.”

“Yes, sir. Anyway, sir, I’ll let the players know that you don’t plan on retiring.”

“Good. What are they going to do about it? Quit and form their own league?” Selig chuckled. His secretary played along, delivering a believable fake laugh. She stepped out of his office.

“Fools,” muttered Selig.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

“Really? Oh. Okay, I guess. Thanks for the call. Bye.” Jorge Posada hung up the phone. He turned to the rest of the group, “Selig’s not retiring.”

“What’s his problem?” asked his teammate and friend, Derek Jeter.

“He still thinks he’s great,” said veteran catcher Ivan Rodriguez.

“What are we gonna do now?” asked Phillies pitcher Cole Hamels, “It’s not like we actually had any idea what we were going to do if he said no. I say we just suck it up and get back on the field.”

Dustin Pedroia spoke up, “We need to form our own league.”

Everyone stared at him. “Ha! Like that could happen,” said Bronson Arroyo from the back.

“No, I’m serious. I mean, we’ve already got a commissioner lined up, and I’m sure he’d go along with it. And why do people pay to see baseball games? Certainly not because Selig’s the commissioner, and nobody cares if the league is called the ‘MLB’, or the, ‘NABL’, or the ‘CNAMBLOPG’. It doesn’t make a difference to the public. People play money to see us. The players. As long as there’s competitive baseball, people will buy tickets.”

Nobody spoke. As Dustin thought about it, even he thought it sort of sounded like a crazy idea. He was about to say, “never mind,” when Posada said, “I’ll call Anybody.”

Wow, great job on this so far!

Nice!

Me gusta mucho

Yeah, this is gonna be good.

Thanks guys. Has anyone ever done this type of thing before?

I was thinking about starting an International League thing similar to this, but that was before I hot the make-your-own-success-mode idea, so it looks like that'll be sitting on the shelf for a while.

This is awesome! Keep goin!

“Are you telling me this might actually work?”

Bronson Arroyo spoke to Jorge Posada three days later, who had been making phone calls and sending e-mails all night for the last few nights to owners, managers, and other players. He was getting sick of being the league secretary, but he said nothing about it.

“It’s possible. 23 of the owners said they’d be happy to go along with it, and only two flat out said ‘no’. The five others said they’d consider it, if we could prove it’d make money.”

“And you told them they’d have to cut costs?”

“Yep.”

“What about the managers?”

“All but three of them. Shouldn’t be hard to find replacements, though, and that’s not our problem anyway.”

“You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

“I know. I couldn’t believe it at first, either.”

“I guess we should tell, Selig, huh?”

“You can do that,” said Posada, handing Arroyo the phone, “I’m gonna take a nap.”

Arroyo sighed and began to dial.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Bud Selig sat in his office, trying to focus.

Okay, he was actually playing Brick Breaker on his BlackBerry, but it at least looked like he was checking e-mails. His secretary’s voice came through on the intercom.

“Sir, I have some new information on the strike,” she said.

Selig paused his game and buzzed her in. “So they finally came to their senses, huh?” he mumbled to himself.

The door opened. “Sir, the players are forming their own league,” said Linda Jolene. She had actually received the news a few hours ago, but she had been packing up stuff from her desk in preparation to be fired.

Selig just laughed. “Ah, no need to worry, Linda,” he said cheerfully, “it’ll never get off the ground, none of the owners will go for it, it’s no big deal.”

“Uh, Mr. Selig, sir, they claim 23 of the owners are already in,” she said cautiously.

“Pfft. Yeah, right. Don’t worry about it, Linda. Everything will work out just fine.”

“Whatever you say, Mr. Commissioner.”

Excellent job. You can make our owner one of the rejections, no one likes him anyway.

This is great so far! Mind if I put a link on the Facebook Page?

Sure, that's fine.

“So what will we call it?” said Cole Hamels to Derek Jeter, who had been put in charge of naming the new league, along with a few other things.

“My first choice was the North American Baseball League, but that’s already taken, so we can just change ‘league’ to ‘association’, and there we go. What do you think?” responded Derek.

“Sounds good. And what are we going to do about rosters? Just keep them as they are?” questioned Cole.

“Can’t. Jorge said that just enough players won’t join the new league that we’ll have to mix up the teams. Basically, all players enter a draft and the owners pick players. We’ll have to find some way to determine the order.”

“So then how are we going to get 30 teams?”

“There are plenty of players already in Indy leagues that are good enough to serve as backups and minor leaguers,” Derek explained, “and even some that could land starting spots. There’ll be a lot of grueling paperwork setting up the contracts of these new players, but it will definitely be worth it to have a competent commissioner.”

“I see. And for stadiums?”

“The stadiums belong to the owners, so all but 3 of the stadiums will be the same. And I’m sure there will be plenty of stadium owners willing to sell their parks to the league.”

“Sounds good.”

“There’s one problem, though. Players are going to take salary cuts, and players in A and AA won’t be able to continue playing since their salaries won’t be enough to support them. So, there’s only going to be a AAA.”

“That sucks.”

“Yeah, it kind of does. But the good news is, there will be a season.”

“Awesome.”

“And more importantly, a season without Bud Selig.”
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

26 Major League owners met at the Airport Hilton in downtown Chicago.

Houston Astros owner Jim Crane spoke, “I’m still on the fence about this. The world tends to have problems accepting new things.”

John Henry, owner of the Boston Red Sox disagreed, “There’s no way this won’t work. You realize who’s playing in this league? Dustin Pedroia, David Ortiz, Tim Wakefield, Daisuke Matsuzaka-”

“John, you’re just naming your guys,” pointed out Tigers owner Mike Ilitch.

Henry sat back and crossed his arms.

The door opened. A Hilton employee walked in. “You guys got everything you need in here, need more coffee, buffet items?”

“No, we’re fine, thank you,” said the owner of the Cincinnati Reds, Bob Castellini.

“Okay. Hey thanks for choosing Airport Hilton, guys,” the employee said, flashing a thumbs up.

“You’re welcome,” said Castellini, rolling his eyes.

“Anyway, back to business. Everyone here is in?” asked Ilitch.

“I’m not,” said Ken Kendrick, owner of the Arizona Diamondbacks. Everyone stared at him. He continued, “I just don’t see how this is going to work. I’m sorry. You’ll have to find a field in Arizona to play on.”

“All right, I guess,” said Ilitch, “Everyone else?”

No one spoke.

“Then I guess this league is going to happen.”

Why is this page stretched to the side? It's a bit annoying to have to scroll side to side to read it.

I'm not sure why it does that. It bothers me too.

Jim Crane is more or less the owner of the Astros now. Might as well change him now to save you trouble later.