A quarter into season, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred shows own style

Bob Nightengale | USA TODAY Sports

NEW YORK -- It will be an awfully strange sight Wednesday when the Major League Baseball's owners arrive into town for their quarterly meetings.

For the first time since April 1970, going back to the days he was the owner of the Milwaukee Brewers, and 22 years as commissioner of Major League Baseball, Bud Selig will not be around.

There's a new chief executive at the helm, and his name is Rob Manfred, baseball's new commissioner, who still can't get used to seeing his name on all of the baseballs.

"Honestly, when I stop getting a kick out of seeing my name on the baseball, I'll probably go do something else,'' he tells USA TODAY Sports Tuesday in his office. "I mean that.''

The first ball used in the 2015 season during the Chicago Cubs-St. Louis Cardinals Sunday Night game, the first ball from his reign as commissioner, is even preserved in a locked wooden box sitting in his Manhattan office.

Manfred, who calls his opening day appearance in Washington D.C. as the greatest day on the job during his short tenure, is now ready to preside over his first owners' meetings.

The man is wasting no time shaking up the establishment.

For the first time since the days of Bowie Kuhn, and throughout the Selig era, baseball's 30 owners no longer will be dining at the historic 21 Club. Manfred has chosen a new Manhattan venue.

"We all cheered. I think we've been there long enough,'' New York Mets owner Fred Wilpon said, laughing. "Hey, Rob told us there would be changes when he got elected. He wanted transparency, and he's done it.

"Nobody could do what Bud did for those 20 years. The game is phenomenal. The owners are better off. The players are better off. The camaraderie that exists between the union and the owners is better off.

"But Rob is his own man, he has his own style, which is good.''

Manfred, 56, will be forever indebted to Selig, and prays that he can be just as successful, but in the first 116 days on the job, he's done things his way.

He shook up all of the ownership committees in baseball, assuring that every club is now represented on at least three committees. He sent a memo two weeks ago reminding clubs that they must consider minority candidates for all front-office and managerial jobs. The clubs also are required to inform him when they're about to make a general manager or managerial change.

And although baseball has had a 162-game schedule since 1961, maybe the time has come to reduce the schedule to 154 games.

Transparency has become the new key word in the Manfred regime.

"I would like for people to develop the sense that we care deeply about the game,'' Manfred said, "that we think about ways that it might be possible to change the game to make it better for our fans. We're not afraid to talk about things that we might consider, because sometimes, you get input that alters what you're thinking might have been originally.''

Manfred has been almost as visible as a LeBron James commercial these days, visiting 22 of the 30 teams, introducing himself to all of the players, and exchanging ideas and gathering input on their concerns. He's even had players volunteer for different initiatives, such as pace of game - with average game times so far reduced by eight minutes - and plans to meet with every club by the end of June.

Now, he will be giving 30 owners - technically, his bosses - the lowdown on baseball's current landscape, and the future, with agreement on anew labor deal needed in 17 months.

"This will be very different,'' Manfred said. "I always had a significant role in the owners' meeting, and on certain committees, but now I have responsibility for all of the committees, and now, I'm running the owners' meeting instead of the commissioner.''

Manfred paused, realized the words that just came out of his mouth, and laughed, reminding himself that he now is the commissioner.

"Well, I guess you can say I'm running the meeting instead of Bud …,'' Manfred said, laughing even harder.

And in a Tuesday afternoon talk with USA TODAY Sports, the array of topics discussed - from the game's lack of offense, to the Biogenesis scandal, to Pete Rose, to reducing the schedule, the Baltimore unrest, to the recent managerial hirings without a minority candidate interviewed, to stadium woes in Oakland - revealed the league he inherits remains complex.

The hottest topic these days is the recent managerial hiring of Dan Jennings in Miami and Craig Counsell in Milwaukee. Neither club interviewed a soul, let alone a minority candidate, leaving Major League Baseball with just three minority general managers, two field managers, and two club presidents.

Manfred says that MLB is prepared to make sure there's a pool of minority candidates for vacant managerial and GM jobs, but refuses to condemn the Marlins and Brewers for their in-house choices of hiring two white baseball executives with no managerial experience.

"I don't think the clubs are looking for a way out of interviewing minority candidates.'' Manfred said. "I really do not believe that. I don't think there's a major-league club that would pick somebody internally in order to avoid an interview process.

"It borders on the ridiculous to assert that in order to avoid the obligation to interview a minority, some club is going to pick somebody internally who's not the best guy to run their ball club.''

And the biggest issue on the field is the dreadful offense in the game - and please, let's don't blame it on all of the defensive shifts.

"We're trying to decide whether we have an aberration that offensive players are going to adjust to, and it self corrects,'' Manfred said, "or whether we have a downward trend that's going to continue. We haven't made our mind up on that, but we're watching very carefully.''

Could the strike zone be modified?

"The strike zone is a possible remedy, not a symptom of offense,'' Manfred said. "I have shied away from the strike zone as an answer. When I get to a room with our very best on-field people, I get different answers as far as what result we'll get if we alter the strike zone in a particular direction.

"And I don't like things when I don't know what hot outcome will be. It makes me nervous.''

Well, since amphetamines are banned in baseball, and the travel schedules for teams are brutal, maybe now is the time to reduce the schedule. Manfred is taking a serious look at it, and plans to discuss it with owners, knowing there could be a financial hit considering teams could lose potentially 5% of their local TV income.

"It is a very serious economic issue,'' Manfred said. "You have to begin there. We sell every game to television. Less games, less revenue. Our gates are extraordinarily valuable to us.

"By the same token, I think there's more openness to at least having a conversation about the issue internally than there has been since I've been involved.''

Who knows, it could turn out to be among the key issues in the next collective bargaining agreement, which expires in December 2016.

"Given the great health of the game,'' Manfred said of baseball's $9 billion annual revenues, at a time the game hasn't had a work stoppage in 21 years, "I'm optimistic we can find a way to make an agreement with the MLBPA. I'm going to continue to believe there is enough money in the game, and enough people that understand how important it is to keep the game on the field, that we will be able to make a deal.''

Certainly, the communication between the players and the Commissioner's office already is strong, particularly with the way they've agreed on drug testing policies and penalties. MLB now has the strongest testing in team sports, and the sport has never been cleaner in this generation, Manfred said.

"I'm really proud of where we are with performance-enhancing drugs,'' Manfred said. "Having said that, I'm a realist when it comes to performance-enhancing drugs. You have to be constantly vigilant to make sure that things don't go in the wrong direction.''

Manfred insists that even without the Miami New Times divulging in 2013 the Biogenesis clinic's relationship with baseball players and other athletes, they would have uncovered the same information.

"We had an active Biogenesis investigation before the story was written,'' Manfred said. "It is entirely possible that we probably would have gotten to the bottom of Biogenesis if the story had not broken…

"Look, I think the success of the Biogenesis investigation sent a message that was really important. Even if you convinced yourself you're not going to get caught up in a test, we may catch you in another way.''

While Alex Rodriguez served the biggest drug suspension in the sport's history, no one has paid a greater price for breaking the law in baseball than Pete Rose. Manfred says that Rose will be granted a fair hearing, and won't be swayed by outside influences, while already granting permission for him to participate in selected All-Star appearances in Cincinnati.

"Honestly, we fully expected that Mr. Rose was going to make a request for reinstatement,'' Manfred said. "You didn't have to be a genius to read those tea leaves. And he is an individual that attracts a lot of attention from both the press and the fan perspective. So we saw this one coming.''

And, yes, just like during Selig's regime, Manfred would love to find a remedy for the Oakland Athletics and Tampa Bay Rays, each who are desperately seeking new ballparks. The Athletics' situation has become more dire with the Oakland Raiders now requesting that the Coliseum be torn down.

"I don't know how anyone could go to the Coliseum now not realize they need a place to play.'' Manfred said. "It's clear that Oakland needs a new facility. Tearing down the Coliseum, and building a single-use football stadium without some plan on what you're going to do for the A's, would be problematic for us.''

While the Athletics' plight has lingered for years, Manfred did survive his first crisis. The recent unrest in Baltimore caused two games to be canceled, a series to be shifted to Tampa, and a game to be played without fans. Given the circumstances, Manfred says, he wouldn't do a thing differently.

"The most challenging time was Baltimore for sure,'' Manfred said. "It was a tragedy for the city and it caused a series of complicated issues for us. But I think the decisions we made were the right ones.''

Manfred's handling of the Baltimore crisis, along with other issues, have drawn strong reviews in his first four months, Now, for the first time, he'll get his own evaluation by the men who employ him.

"I already know what they're saying,'' Selig, now the commissioner emeritus, told USA TODAY Sports. "They're very pleased. So am I. Rob is off to a great start.

"It's been a seamless transition, which is what I really wanted.''

Yep, even if there is a new menu at the dinner table tonight.