Selig, Schuerholz Elected To Baseball Hall of Fame

By ESPN

Bud Selig spent 22 years as the commissioner of baseball. John Schuerholz built World Series champions in Atlanta and Kansas City. On Sunday night, they were elected together to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Schuerholz was elected unanimously by the 16 members of the Hall's newly formed Today's Game Era Committee. Selig received 15 of 16 possible votes. No one else on the 10-person ballot came close to the 12 votes (or 75 percent) needed for election. Longtime manager Lou Piniella, who got seven votes, was the only other candidate to get within five votes of election.

Selig became the first living commissioner to be elected to the Hall since Happy Chandler in 1982. Selig has been serving as baseball's commissioner emeritus since retiring as commissioner after the 2014 season.

His time as commissioner weathered its share of storms, from the strike that canceled the 1994 World Series to the PED era. But Selig wound up spending more years on the job -- 22, if you include his six years as interim commissioner -- than any commissioner in history, with the exception of Kenesaw Mountain Landis. And Selig presided over an era of dramatic change which, as Hall of Fame president Jeff Idelson put it Sunday, "had a profound impact on how the game has matured over the last quarter-century."

"It reminded me of many a ninth inning when I used to pace around,'' Selig, the one-time owner of the Milwaukee Brewers, said on a conference call of not seeing his election as a sure thing.

Schuerholz was picked by all 16 voters on a veterans committee at the winter meetings in suburban Washington. Selig was listed 15 times.

"The ultimate of honors,'' Schuerholz said.

Interleague play came to baseball on Selig's watch. So did wild cards, replay, 22 new ballparks, huge attendance growth, realignment, two expansions, globalization and an explosion in revenues. Baseball was a $1.2 billion industry when he took the job. It was a $9 billion industry when he retired.

Selig and Schuerholz are linked by their association with the Braves, but they also worked together extensively during Selig's time as commissioner. Selig appointed Schuerholz to lead a number of different committees, most recently the committee that formulated baseball's foray into expanded use of replay in Selig's final season.

Former Cardinals' Matt Holliday Headed to Yankees

Former St. Louis Cardinals slugger Matt Holliday and the New York Yankees have agreed to a one-year deal worth $13 million, a source told ESPN's Jim Bowden, confirming multiple reports.

Holliday, who turns 37 next month, fits into the Yankees' strategy of signing veterans to short-term deals while pivoting toward a youth movement.

The Cardinals informed Holliday that they wouldn't pick up his $17 million option in late September, allowing the team and Holliday to plan his farewell on the team's final homestand of 2016. In what were supposed to be largely ceremonial at-bats, Holliday, still recovering from a broken right thumb, swatted a home run and had a key RBI single. He got a roaring ovation when manager Mike Matheny sent him out, alone, to left field and then immediately subbed him out on the final day of the regular season.

A seven-time All-Star, Holliday was viewed as lineup protection for Albert Pujols when he arrived in St. Louis in a trade from the Oakland Athletics during the 2010 season. Then he became one of the few players to live up to a massive long-term contract. Over the course of the seven-year, $120 million extension Holliday signed going into the 2011 season, he batted .288 with an .863 OPS and 143 home runs.