Politics & Power Quote by Bud Selig

Wrapped in paternal concern, Selig’s statement is really a crisis-management memo dressed up as moral guidance. By invoking “the youth of America,” he reaches for the safest constituency in public discourse: kids. It’s a classic move when an institution’s credibility is on fire. You don’t start with competitive integrity, labor complicity, or record books; you start with children, because children turn a governance failure into an ethical emergency.

The phrasing does careful legal and political work. “Recognized the influence” flatters MLB’s own mythology of heroism while implying the league has been responsibly vigilant all along. “Recent revelations and allegations” keeps everything conveniently in the fog: not proven, not named, not attributable to systemic neglect. It frames the steroid era as a sudden storm of bad press rather than a long-running environment the league benefited from financially, especially during a post-strike scramble to rebuild interest.

The subtext is less about protecting young fans than protecting the brand’s parent-approved image in an era when advertisers, legislators, and angry columnists were circling. “Terrible message” shifts the argument from rules to vibes: steroids become a cultural contaminant, not merely cheating. That matters because a vibes-based indictment invites symbolic fixes - hearings, policy announcements, a few suspensions - without requiring a full accounting of how stars, owners, and league leadership all profited from the home-run boom.

It’s a statement engineered to sound like accountability while keeping accountability diffuse.