The gang was all there at the Essex House Tuesday for baseball’s version of bread and circuses: Bud Selig, the interim ad infinitum commissioner; Donald (No) Fehr, the anti-Monty Hall; Randy (La Grande Orange II) Levine, the city slicker; both league presidents, Leonard Coleman and Gene Budig. There was even Fred Wilpon, running around the room in mock anger, looking to get a piece of Braves Chairman Bill Bartholomay as further restitution for Steve Avery’s knee-ball at Jose Vizcaino.
But enough of the circus. The occasion for such an impressive gathering of the game’s dignitaries was the introduction of Greg Murphy as baseball’s new CEO of business and marketing.
The 47-year-old Murphy brings to the job an impressive resume of marketing success, most recently at the Kraft Bakery Co., where he spearheaded its expansion into Lender’s Bagels, Entenmann’s and Freihofer’s.
Call him the “the Bread Man” if you will. The Lords of Baseball are definitely counting on him to make a lot more bread for them.
Murphy’s primary task is to give baseball an image makeover.
Unfortunately, the way baseball has worked for too long is against itself. It is hard to imagine how Murphy will be able to change that image as long as there is no labor agreement. As someone suggested to him Tuesday, the best thing he could have done at his coming-out party was to have locked Fehr and Levine up in an Essex House closet.
