When John Henry surveys the baseball landscape, he sees obstacles on near and distant horizons. The Red Sox principal owner sees the need for a commissioner with a background in business and a strong vision of how to surmount the coming challenges.

He sees Tom Werner, chairman of the Red Sox and the franchise’s third-biggest stakeholder, as the perfect fit to succeed Bud Selig as commissioner.

The issue, however, is that if Werner, one of three finalists, were to win this Thursday’s owners’ vote in Baltimore, Henry would lose both a trusted business partner and a locally-based close friend.

And that presents a dilemma for Henry, as he outlined in a series of recent e-mail exchanges with the Herald about the next commissioner and a variety of other topics near and dear to his interests.

“There is no doubt he would make a great commissioner,” Henry said of Werner. “Tom is one of the most popular owners because he’s very passionate about baseball, has a sense of duty as evidenced by his work with veterans and the Red Sox Foundation and because he is trusted by everyone who knows him. You won’t find a more popular person in the television industry.

“On the other hand, we would hate to lose him here. Not only would he have to sell his interest in the Red Sox, but he would be moving back to New York. It would be a terrible loss, personally and professionally. So I have very mixed feelings on the subject.”

Establishing the pulse of the voting electorate of 30 team owners on the cusp of making their most important decision in more than two decades is a nearly impossible task.

Selig’s preference to succeed him is Rob Manfred, the chief operating officer of MLB, and Selig’s long-time No. 2. However, Manfred’s strength — establishing a close working relationship with the players’ union that has helped prevent any work stoppages since 1994 — is not enough for some owners.

Henry certainly sounds as though he is one of the owners who is leaning toward Werner or third candidate Tim Brosnan, MLB’s executive vice president of business.

“It’s a very important time,” Henry said. “There are excellent candidates. I believe, given today’s world, that we need a businessman who understands more than the inherent problems of owners and of labor. That person must excel in understanding media, entertainment, competition and business as well as the sport. The game won’t automatically grow and it could well be disrupted by standing still.”

The notion of standing still at this juncture relates closely to Henry’s No. 1 concern about the game: its pace. While there are rules in place for how long pitchers are allowed to take between pitches and long batters are allowed to set themselves, umpires are not enforcing them. And players and pitchers, with the exception of Mark Buehrle, are doing little self-enforcing.

To Henry, the matter is not trivial, and he insists action must be taken to quicken the pace.

“Attention spans are shortening in regard to media. That has been the case for some time now,” he said. “Making fans wait between pitches isn’t a big issue at the ballpark, but on TV it’s very easy to switch to something else. There is too much waiting in baseball for 21st century television viewers.”

Asked what else could be done besides more rigid enforcement, he pointed to the game’s great conundrum.

“There are purists who think the lack of a clock is great thing,” he said. “But that relates to the fact that a game will go on until a winner is decided. Our internal clocks, our attention spans in (modern) America — have shortened markedly. We have to compete with other forms of entertainment.”

Baseball’s pace certainly flies in the face of the amped-up, 24-7, instant-reaction news, entertainment and social media cycle that has transformed business and culture. Under Selig’s 22-year tenure, baseball has enjoyed substantial overall growth, from $2 billion in annual revenues to somewhere between $8 and $9 billion. Attendance is up, but TV ratings overall are no longer at the level from a decade or two ago.

At NESN, the broadcasting arm of the Red Sox, ratings have taken a hit this season.

“Ratings are down as you would expect from the play of the team this year,” Henry said. “However, this is highly unusual the year after winning the World Series. That being said, ratings for MLB are down across the board this year.”

The chase for the attention of viewers and readers is the chief job of any content provider. With its slate of 2,430 regular-season games, MLB is a robust player in that sense, with a successful TV network and Internet presence overseen by the thriving Major League Baseball Advanced Media. Henry has devoted a substantial portion of his baseball time working with MLBAM to increase its influence. If viewers are choosing to click away from NESN or any televised baseball game, it is a big deal to him. The intersection of baseball and technology is priceless real estate, which is part of the reason Henry wants baseball’s next generation of leadership to capitalize on that crossroads opportunity.

Said Henry: “MLB needs to confront the realities of 21st century media. We need the game on phones and tablets. We need to reduce the amount of waiting between pitches. The NFL has done a tremendous job of adapting their games and schedules for television. Baseball in 2014 needs, in addition to a commissioner, a real CEO who is intently focused on forcing the sport to compete in a world that more and more belongs to those who can create, adapt, build and execute in a transformed entertainment world.

“Baseball didn’t have to compete with that much 30 years ago. But today, competition is changing. The video game world is bigger than movies now. The digital world will surpass the analog world across the board where it already hasn’t. Baseball, digitally, needs to be more about competing within the entertainment industry than about leveling the playing field.”

A level playing field within the game has been a primary concern of owners for some time. In 2009, Henry was fined when he complained that high-revenue teams were subsidizing smaller-revenue teams with hard-earned dollars that were not being reinvested appropriately into the product on the field.

The situation has improved.

“Revenue sharing is an important part of sports and baseball,” Henry said. “I don’t think baseball could live without it. A few years ago I observed that clubs on the receiving end had done better from a profit perspective than a competitive one, but that has changed since then. There has been a focus on putting dollars to work and all you have to do is look at the records of the Yankees and Red Sox over the last three years to at least partially see the impact.”

Business-wise, Henry is concerned with more than keeping baseball relevant. Last October, he purchased the Boston Globe. At a time when newspapers around the country have shut down or slashed personnel in the face of declining readership and advertising revenues, Henry invested in the Globe, which was being spun off by the New York Times Company. The Times used to be the second-largest stakeholder in the Red Sox, lending at least the appearance of a conflict of interest when it came to the newspaper’s Red Sox coverage. Now, a parallel dynamic exists with Henry at the helm.

He addressed the question of whether he has established boundaries when it comes to Globe coverage of the Red Sox.

“I don’t get involved at all with baseball coverage,” Henry said. “That would be completely inappropriate. I did get involved in pushing for Score, which was a standalone NFL section we created, and they did a terrific job on that. I’d like to see more coverage of the Revolution because I think they are becoming a more important part of the community. Soccer is becoming more important as evidenced by the reception Liverpool received here (at Fenway) this year. But I haven’t said anything to our editor or sports editor.

“When the (Globe) deal went through, I sat down with (Patriots owner) Robert Kraft in his kitchen one morning to assure him that in sports the Globe would continue its coverage exactly as it had before. As I told him, I’m not going to be involved in that area except to the extent I think we could improve our overall sports coverage.

“Since the deal closed I have not initiated a single discussion on the Sox, Liverpool or baseball. There are other areas I attend to; it’s a complicated, diverse business that is radically changing. It’s an important asset of the community.”

Boston remains a two-newspaper town, a vanishing species around the country. The healthy competition between the Globe and the Herald, including but not limited to local and regional news and sports, is a boon for readers. That the Globe now uses its excess printing capacity to print the Herald highlights the changing economic realities of the two newspapers. Each strives to give its readers the best coverage possible, from the Red Sox to Beacon Hill. When it comes to sports coverage, Henry sees ESPN as the Globe’s chief competition — but with a caveat.

“In sports, the Globe competes on the Web with everyone,” Henry said. “You are one click away from the best in the world in every area. ESPN is what we are up against in sports. But you also have the damn Herald.”

You’re welcome.

Enthusiasm bubbles over

One issue confronting baseball that Henry did not raise is the bubble machine in the Los Angeles Dodgers dugout. Spraying the soapy spheres after home runs or a Clayton Kershaw no-hitter became a custom until Joe Torre, an executive vice president of MLB, asked the ballclub to stop the practice, according to the Los Angeles Times.

“Everybody has their own way to celebrate a home run,” catcher A.J. Ellis told the Times. “Ours includes a prop. So does Milwaukee, a guy sliding down a slide. So does New York (Mets), with a big apple popping up in center field. So many teams are firing off fireworks. It’s fun for the fans. It’s a little innocent thing. This game is serious enough as it is. We get criticized enough for being stoic.” . . .

Baseball America occasionally ranks players with the best tools. Recently, the journal tallied which players won best-tools honors most often since 2000. Ranked first was outfielder Ichiro Suzuki, followed by Albert Pujols, Justin Verlander, Roy Halladay, Vladimir Guerrero and Alex Rodriguez. Andrew McCutchen and Mike Trout tied for seventh.