"The village idiot"

That's what Charles O. Finley called Bowie Kuhn, baseball's commissioner in the tumultuous years of 1969 to 1984. He died yesterday at 80. Some of the highlights of his tenure:

• He ushered in expansion teams and created division play and the playoffs leading to the World Series.
  
• He rejected Curt Flood's demand to end the Reserve Clause, a precursor to free agency.
• He battled against players associating with gambling interests, suspending star pitcher Denny McLain, and later barred retired players Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle from baseball because of promotional work they'd done for casinos. They'd be reinstated by his successor, Peter Ueberroth.
  
• He ushered in World Series night games which greatly increased TV revenue, but has been criticized every October since.
• He wasn't in attendance when Hank Aaron passed Babe Ruth's HR record.
• He fought with owners, like the aforementioned Finley, Ted Turner, and George Steinbrenner, and faced repeated lock-outs by owners and strikes by players, and in 1975 the free agency era began. He and the players' union head, Marvin Miller, would become life-long enemies.
  

Pretty amazing tenure. Ironically, Kuhn was certain that free agency would be the death knell for the game. Instead, the game has only gotten bigger, more popular (here and around the world), with players and owners becoming much, much more wealthy. Free agency forced owners to look for more revenue streams, leading them to build new, grander ball parks, and to be less complaisant about the players on their teams. And it made baseball the one year around sport -- hot stove baseball -- as fans talk and read about potential signings all winter long.