The lousy legacy of Bud Lite

William D. Eckert's main claim to fame is gone. Bud Selig has replaced him as the worst commissioner in baseball history.

Although the 30 club owners have learned to tolerate one of their own because their turnstiles are spinning, Selig has probably damaged the game beyond repair.

Never mind that he looked the other way for 16 years of the steroids era -- allowing all of the game's great records to be twisted and demolished by athletes who couldn't hold a candle to the great record-holders of the past.

Selig has taken a broom and swept out everything traditional about baseball.

The league presidents are gone. The umpiring staffs are merged. And the integrity of the leagues has been lost with the advent of interleague play.

The best teams almost never reach the World Series. But teams that play well from June to October are rewarded with a ridiculous system that has produced five World Champions that didn't even win divisional titles.

Voting for the All-Star Game is a farce -- even without the involvement of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Karl Rove -- and the schedule is even more disrespected.

Leagues have different sizes and play under different rules. Divisions also have different sizes, creating 6-1 odds against winning for teams of the National League Central but only 4-1 odds against winning for teams of the American League West.

AL pitchers that don't bat all year do bat in interleague games on NL fields. And for every "good" game (like Yankees-Mets, White Sox-Cubs, or Angels-Dodgers), there are dozens of meaningless games (like Royals-Phillies or Blue Jays-Giants). Interleague play is conveniently scheduled to occur just as schools let out, masking true fan interest. But it's still obvious fans interest is gone. They would rather see divisional rivals fight it out then twiddle their thumbs for a publicity stunt that outlived the novelty eons ago.

Ditto the All-Star Game. After fans are encouraged to vote 25 times on MLB.com or through computerized ballots distributed by the fistful -- especially in big-market cities -- baseball has no business stating that this once-cherished July exhibition has an ounce of integrity left. Giving the winning league the homefield advantage is just a gimmick to get viewers, who are far smarter than the TV honchos who start the game too late and cram in too many commercial breaks.

The only excuse for starting at 8:30 EDT is that Bud Selig's relatives in Milwaukee get to see the game at an almost-reasonable 7:30 CDT. It doesn't matter to them that millions of youngsters on the East Coast will be asleep long before the game ends -- if not put to sleep earlier by the bombast of FOX analyst Tim McCarver. He's the prime example of why -- with few exceptions --- ex-ballplayers should not be allowed into the broadcast booth.

If Selig had a spine, he would follow the 1957 precedent of Ford Frick and veto half of the fans' lineup choices. The Cub fans are stocking the ballot box this year, foisting Alfonso Soriano and two rookies named Geovanny Soto and Hideki Fukodome on unsuspecting fans everywhere.

Here's a message for the ballot-stuffing bleacher bums: if we wanted to watch a Cubs game, we would get XM Satellite Radio or the WGN superstation. The purpose of the All-Star Game is supposed to be a match between the best players of both LEAGUES.

Maybe these ballot-twisters worked for Barack Obama -- there was something fishy about his ability to win the most delegates to the Democratic National Convention without winning the most popular votes. It's a repeat of the 2000 election, when the best candidate lost.

But the best candidate loses often. George W. Bush was the best candidate for commissioner in 1994, when he told Bud Selig he wanted the job. But Selig turned him away, stating an owner shouldn't be commissioner and sending Dubya down a more partisan political path.

Don't get me wrong: Bush has been an absolute embarrassment as president, probably outranking Nixon as the worst occupant the White House ever had. But he would have been a helluva lot better commissioner than Bud Lite.

The best thing Selig did during his tenure was go to Israel on vacation. The worst thing he did was to come back.

Where or where is the mandatory retirement age for this guy? He's into his 70s now -- almost as old as Julio Franco -- and never had a prime to pass. The sooner baseball dumps his sorry ass, the better the game will be. If it can ever recover.