Rob Manfred has been elected as baseball's 10th commissioner. This has been announced last Thursday. 55 year old Manfred succeeded Bud Selig. He has worked for the MLB since 1998 and now that he has been appointed, he will be replacing Selig this coming Jan 25. Manfred beat out Boston Red Sox Chairman Tom Werner and MLB Executive Vice President of Business Tim Brosnan. But Brosnan has withdrawn his candidacy way before the start of balloting.
According to Manfred "I am tremendously honored by the confidence that the owners showed in me today. Have very big shoes to fill."
The Balloting took four and a half hours and that Manfred was elected on the sixth ballot. The initial vote was 20-10 for Manfred, three short of the required three-quarters majority. His total increased to 21 on the second and 22 on the third.
Manfred said "What I said to the owners when I came down after the vote is that I didn't really want to even think about who was on what side of what issue at points in the process and that my commitment to the owners was that I would work extremely hard day in and day out to convince all 30 of them that they had made a great decision today."
According to sources, White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf and Toronto president Paul Beeston were against Manfred while Angels owner Arte Moreno joined Reinsdorf as Werner's biggest supporters.
Reinsdorf said "While Rob may not have been my initial choice for commissioner, the conclusion of a very good process was to name Rob as the person best positioned to help baseball endure and grow even stronger for the next generation of fans. Today's decision was reached by 30 owners voting separately but speaking, in the end, with one voice."
Werner started his career as a television executive and was highly voted by those who wanted an owner to follow Selig. Werner said "I think the last two days have been productive because we've been able to share a number of ideas about the game and how to improve it and modernize it. I think that Rob agrees with many of the ideas that I espoused, and I am very confident that we are going to see some things, such as improved pace of play."
