Report: Rob Manfred the favorite to replace Bud Selig as MLB commissioner
By Jack Crosby
We still don’t know who will replace longtime Major League Baseball commissioner Bud Selig when his reign is up following the 2014 season, but on Friday we may have gotten a rather good idea as to who will be running the game of baseball in 2015.
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According to a report from the New York Times via SI.com, the candidate with the best odds to step into the largest role in baseball is the current chief operating officer and a friend of Selig, Rob Manfred.
In the report, it states that Selig may have actually been planning this for quite some time since his retirement announcement.
"According to the Times‘ Michael S. Schmidt, Selig “has orchestrated his succession plan with secret meetings that, several owners said, have left little doubt about his wishes. Mr. Selig, they believe, would like the sport’s 30 owners to anoint his deputy, Rob Manfred, as baseball’s next commissioner.”"
Manfred has been associated with the league since 1997 when he took the position as head of Major League Baseball’s Labor Relations department and has worked his way up the ladder ever since, resulting in his promotion to his current post following the end of the 2013 season.
It would certainly make sense for Manfred to run things after Selig is gone, not just because of the friendship between the two, but because he has strong knowledge of how the league’s structure works with his experience.