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For the past decade, Tom Werner has been a prominent part of an ownership group in Boston that has turned the Red Sox into a top baseball franchise, the winner of three World Series and the producer of some pioneering marketing for a sports team.
Now, with a week to go before team owners are to pick a replacement for Bud Selig as Major League Baseball’s commissioner, Werner has emerged as a formidable challenger to Selig’s longtime deputy and closest adviser, Rob Manfred.
Selig formally announced in September that he would step down in January 2015, and Manfred, baseball’s chief operating officer, has been seen as the favorite to succeed him. But Werner’s candidacy has gained some traction in recent weeks as he has received the backing of a small but influential group of owners who are strongly opposed to Manfred and are trying to block his election.
Until recently, the owners opposed to Manfred — the Chicago White Sox’ Jerry Reinsdorf, the Red Sox’ John Henry and the Los Angeles Angels’ Arte Moreno — had largely failed to come up with an alternative candidate.
Rob Manfred, baseball’s chief operating officer, has been seen as the favorite for commissioner.Credit Ricardo Arduengo/Associated Press
But now, Werner’s supporters are contending that they have enough votes to block Manfred’s candidacy when the first votes are taken next week. They believe that if they can thwart him initially, the process will become chaotic, and other owners will join their side and elect one of their own.
This account is based on interviews with several owners and others in baseball. Most spoke on the condition of anonymity because they did not want to be identified discussing deliberations Selig has urged them to keep private.
Werner, who made his name as the executive producer of “The Cosby Show,” has significant shortcomings as an executive, according to some owners and baseball officials. His tenure running the San Diego Padres in the 1990s was considered far from a success, and he is considered to have far less expertise in how the game operates than Manfred or the other candidate on the ballot, baseball’s top business official, Tim Brosnan.
Brosnan, who is not nearly as close with Selig as Manfred is, made it on the ballot because of his experience securing lucrative television and sponsorship deals for baseball, and he made a pitch to owners that the sport needed to concentrate on expanding its fan base. Brosnan has a long history with baseball, having played it for four years at Georgetown.
The ballot was supposed to have a fourth candidate — Richard C. Levin, the former president of Yale — but he dropped out in recent weeks. He would not have been the first president of Yale to become commissioner: Twenty-five years ago, Selig, then the owner of the Milwaukee Brewers, helped make A. Bartlett Giamatti the game’s commissioner. Giamatti served as commissioner for less than a year before he died of a heart attack.
The emergence of Werner is only the most recent development in a process that has not gone nearly as seamlessly as Selig had hoped and that has resulted in a falling-out between Selig and Reinsdorf, one of his oldest and closest friends in the game.
During Selig’s two decades as commissioner, Reinsdorf benefited significantly from their close relationship; Selig put Reinsdorf on his executive board and gave lucrative contracts to companies he owned.
But in a twist worthy of Shakespeare, Reinsdorf turned on Selig this year. Reinsdorf told other owners that Selig, who has said that he is not supporting a candidate, should not play a role in picking his successor because he had no ownership in the game going forward and had not been transparent as commissioner. Electing Manfred, Reinsdorf said, would only continue that trend.
Although Selig felt betrayed, Reinsdorf has continued to oppose Manfred. Selig and Reinsdorf will now spend the week trying to outmaneuver each other in a baseball trench war they never thought they would fight.
“The next eight days will be about Bud versus Jerry,” one senior baseball official said. “Bud is dismayed.”
There does not appear to be one chief reason the group of owners is opposing Manfred, who has been credited with improving baseball’s relationship with its players union and tackling the issue of doping in the sport.
Reinsdorf and Moreno believe that Manfred has not been tough enough on the players union in recent negotiations. Others have contended that Manfred does not have the business skills or the experience to expand the sport’s appeal.
It was only on Monday that many owners learned they would soon be voting on a commissioner. In an email, the owners were told that the vote would be held at the quarterly owners’ meetings scheduled to take place in Baltimore on Aug. 14.
The email did not say which names would appear on the ballot, which puzzled some owners.
Some owners were surprised that the vote was being taken so soon, less than three months after the announcement that Selig had appointed a search committee. Werner’s supporters saw the rush to a decision as a sign that their candidate was gaining traction and that Selig had pushed for an early vote to stop it.
A candidate needs 23 of 30 teams to vote for him to be elected. Werner’s supporters are hoping the Washington Nationals, the Oakland Athletics, the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Cincinnati Reds will help initially block Manfred.
As in a political campaign, Manfred’s supporters have countered, arguing that Reinsdorf, who has been a member of the sport’s executive board, is opposed to Manfred only because he is afraid that his own influence in the game will wane.
“After Reinsdorf got caught bad-mouthing Rob and Bud, he stopped for five minutes and then went back to working the phones,” one person in baseball said.
The Red Sox, Manfred’s supporters say, are opposing his candidacy only because they are trying to gain leverage over him and Selig as they try to get a larger share of profit from their local television contract.
Manfred’s supporters also contend that Werner is trying to gain votes by promising positions to other owners. They said Werner’s supporters had told one of Manfred’s longtime friends that he could have a senior position in the commissioner’s office in exchange for his support.
It was only in recent weeks that Werner emerged as a viable candidate. Around the time it was revealed in May that Reinsdorf strongly opposed Manfred, several owners approached Werner about becoming a candidate.
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His candidacy, however, has raised questions about a statement he made to The Boston Globe last month. Asked whether he would want to succeed Selig, Werner said: “Me as commissioner? No, I’m very happy as chairman of the Boston Red Sox.”
The same month, Werner was interviewed by the search committee. In that meeting, he focused on the business of the game and how it could grow under him.
Werner was not the only owner interviewed as a potential successor to Selig. The committee also met with Mark Attanasio of the Milwaukee Brewers and Stuart Sternberg of the Tampa Bay Rays — two owners admired for successfully running small-market franchises.
What a shady spaz.
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