Politics & Power Quote by Bud Selig

Selig reaches for the civics register the way baseball itself reaches for sepia tone: to turn a commercial entertainment product into a moral heirloom. Calling MLB a "national institution" isn’t just pride; it’s a legitimacy claim. Institutions aren’t supposed to look like businesses making hard-nosed decisions about labor, profits, or public subsidies. They’re supposed to look like guardians. That framing pre-loads the listener to treat criticism of MLB as something close to unpatriotic, or at least socially irresponsible.

The phrase "we take our responsibilities seriously" is classic executive prophylaxis. It promises gravity without naming any specific obligation, metric, or sacrifice. The subtext is: trust us, even when you don’t like what we’re doing. It’s a statement designed to travel well in press conferences, congressional hearings, and sponsor decks because it signals virtue while staying strategically noncommittal.

Then comes the emotional anchor: "American youth". This is where the rhetoric does its real work. Kids function as the culture’s trump card; invoke them and you shift the debate from policy to protection. In context, Selig’s era was thick with pressure points that could stain MLB’s brand in precisely that way: steroid scandals, labor battles, ticket prices, and the slow drift of younger audiences to other sports and screens. By emphasizing "how the game affects" young lives, he nudges the public to see MLB less as an industry and more as a shaping force - something that deserves deference, patience, and, not incidentally, continued access to public goodwill.

It’s not a confession of responsibility; it’s a bid for it.