[applause] hello, everybody. I am so happy to be here with my friend, the commissioner, bud selig. I now realize it was a quarter of a century ago, i came to milwaukee, and read no ordinary time about frank and roosevelt. He wanted me to talk about baseball. Always that push and pull. What is happening in baseball, what is happening in the country, we have a great relationship, we became great friends with each others families and went to the hall of fame games together, went to japan for the opening day of the red sox, and all this time, bud selig would tell these amazing stories. I was glad when he decided to write this book which is a collection of the best stories. He is a great storyteller. I am so happy to be able to ask him questions that will illuminate. We will get to the thing that is on everybodys might which is the Houston Astros disaster and what that means for baseball. This guy is always authentic. He will tell you what is happening but i would like to start with the friendship you formed with hank aaron. We talked about it and what it was like for you when barry bonds was chasing his record and what it was like for you to have an africanamerican who was so essential in the sport and what it meant to you. It is a pleasure to be here today and to add something that doris said. When we met and for many years after words and up to this date, when we get together she wants to talk about baseball and i want to talk about history. Perfect marriage. Exactly right. I met henry aaron in 1958 long before i was in baseball and before he became the home run champion. We used to go to green bay packer games together and did things but it began in 1957 before i met him. He hit a home run to win the pennant for the milwaukee braves and doris, was carried off the field, a moment i will never forget. The next day in the new york times, the picture is juxtaposed, hank aaron being carried off the field, this gigantic celebration by his mainly white teammates and orville, a black kids picture, next to him, trying to go to school in little rock, arkansas. The picture made an indelible impression on me. And influenced my thinking. I will tell you rachel robinson, Jackie Robinsons widow, magnificent woman, once asked where that started. When i looked at that picture i realized how baseball could play a role sociologically and it did and so the other story i will tell you about henry, during the steroid situation i asked six hall of fame players to come to washington and they did, to appear before john mccains committee, it went extremely well and hank was the leadoff speaker but we had a dinner the night before and the night before after eating too much he said lets walk back and we walked back together just the two of us. He said to me at one point you have to understand, he is the most remarkably modest person that you could meet. We were standing under a street lamp. He said who would have believed when we were kids growing up, someday that is the only time i heard him say this, babe roofs record, and you would become the commissioner of baseball. We looked at each other and kept walking. [applause] tell me about ricky and his role in talking about changing the country as well as baseball and bringing Jackie Robinson. It led to the most important moment in baseball history, certainly the most powerful. 1945, the club had voted 151 with the commissioner who had said as long as he was commissioner of baseball, would never be a minority player. Mercifully, he died. [laughter] so ricky, incredible when you think about it, signs Jackie Robinson to a montreal contract and goes through all the stuff. On april 15th, 1947, you would know that better than i would, jackie or rachel called him jack, roosevelt robinson, the club is had voted 151 not to allow minority players just right before that and ricky did it and the whole thing was stunning and when you think of it this way you will appreciate this it was 3 and a half years before harry truman desegregated the united states, 7 years before brown versus board of education at 18 years before the civil rights movements. Ricky is a hero of mine. He was the greatest sports executive of all time. You can put that in together. It was a wonderful story. I must say when i was a little girl is a brooklyn dodgers fan Jackie Robinson was my favorite player and i would like to think now it was because i knew what he represented for civil rights but if im honest it was just that he was so exciting as a player. He would get on first placement steel second and then steal third and completely rattled the picture so i loved him but i always wanted his autograph and there were always long lines. In those days you could wait. They didnt charge you for the autographs, you just go. I never got his. When i was a young teenager i went, some of you are older may remember is teenagers we had these ridiculous autograph books where you say i will love you until Niagara Falls or i will cherish you to rubber tires will write all these stupid things to each other. I brought my autograph book and finally got to the front of the line and give it to him and thought he would just signed, he looks like one of my intimate friends but he started to read these things and i thought oh my god, i thought i would faint embarrassment. Incomplete keeping with the sentiment of the autograph book he wrote keep your smile a long long while, Jackie Robinson. It was the best. Years later i gave an award to rachel robinson, just kept thinking of fully my father had been there, giving her an award on behalf of eleanor roosevelt, told her how i had a crush on her husband, told her this ridiculous story and she is an incredibly typified wonderful woman. She told me the stories, the pressure on him was enormous. After he took great abuse in cincinnati, and ben chapman who is the manager who got fired the next year, was awful and ricky did something you didnt do, and i want to go on the word and travel with him the rest of the way home. Somehow they got through that and the more you read the story and the more you know about the story it was really a great story. It didnt solve any of our problems but if you read it, it sets an example. So important for us today. In the last day and a half we have talked so much about the situation in the country. Moving them and many of themf that for a little girl it was a disaster. Bud you know i teach now and walter does not come out well. And here is what and i have looked back on this, 1957 the giants will move and they should move. And whatever few giant fans they had, i see th say this not becae im talking to you but its because i believe that. It was a time in a move that really i think, broke the core of what people thought about sports and what, i mean, by that is that the dodgers for Something Special only in brooklyn but everywhere. And therefore, did ellie deserve team, of course she they have team of course they should. But not the brooklyn dodgers. [laughter]. And you know, you can suggest as you well know historians revisit history and they try to make believe that is robert moses. It was not, yes they wanted to build it on the flatbush avenue and they didnt and then moses offered them a place where they later built j stadium. And if people have said, was it perfect for the brooklyn dodgers but is a of a lot better than going to los angeles. Thats not a proud chapter in baseball history. Doris we sent petitions and i had dreams that i encountered in there somehow and i was a hero. And they couldnt leave the brooklyn dodgers and go to los angeles and then there was this horrible thing we used to say to one another which is embarrassing even more as a human being and then a horse story and what if you are in a room with hitler and walter and scally, and youll had two bullets what we do. The idiotic thing. Bud it was unanimous. That was a story that harry had two boats and walter got both of them. Doris exactly. Lets just talk about the contour as your leadership as commissioner. Weve been talking this last couple of days again about the gap between the rich and the poor and the lack of mobility and the fact that some people in the country not feeling that they are getting the change as some of other people in the country. That was a situation in baseball. And thats where you came in. In the same team was winning the playoff. If you are in a small market team you had very little help the team would make it. This is a whole series of things to help the situation. Each one mustve been tough knowing how it was. Bud is a very tough baseball as a social institution. And it was resistant to change so when i did the wildcard, oh my goodness. All that the abuse and oh you cannot do that. But i knew the one thing that we had to get too close revenuesharing and you know doris, i believe that an important part baseball is hope and faith. So that is in many franchises is possible, on march 26th this year, people at least have hope and faith the team can be competitive. But we had got into a point in the mid 90s when that was not so anymore. And so therefore, revenuesharing was critical. It took a long time and it went through a lot of pain and they did a lot of other revenue sharing things like for instance our Internet Company which proved to be an extraordinary success rate i wanted every club two of the same amount. I wanted Kansas City Royals tone is much as new york yankees. I wanted the pittsburgh but harvest own as much is los angeles. Because it was good for the sport. And it provided the hope faith that you needed. Slowly but surely in the legislative process we got things done twopoint we had over 5 million in revenue sharing. But a lot of other mechanisms, and in 2014 and 2015, went to the world series in kansas city missouri, that was a thrill for me. I never forget people everywhere kept saying thank you thank you so again the keywords we are hope and faith thats what everybody wants to hear anything else worked out well and we have work to do yet but it came along way in a short period of time. Doris you have statistics about how many more teams and into this final playoffs. Especially the wildcard. The one everybody got into the playoffs at one point and that was like in 2001 and it really made me happy and it did what we wanted to do it so it really worked out well. And it is so important because the fact of the matter is and he used to say that to the big markets clubs who balked at a lot of things and although i will say this, george was difficult and he was unusual and he was all of the above and being very serious now. But in the end, he went longways. And it turns out, the best years baseball ever had from 2005 on, we almost went to 80 Million People and so on. So the years we had revenuesharing and all of other devices that went in. So is good for the game. Doris the title of the book. For the good of the game. What about instant replay was a difficult thing to do. Bud it was difficult. Im really a traditionalist at heart. And i would really want to give credit to connie larusso. And he was working for me at the time and he sends at one point, weve got to go, not in baseball. I said football you get instant replay and take them six minutes before i find out what is good or bad but he convinced me over and over with the help of joe and mike and jimmy that it was good and so on the theory that you really want to get it right, we had had enough it came in detroit with two outs righted pitched a perfect game in the empire called it first. And that was painful. He was a good empire. I finally said to myself lets do it and we did it and its worked out very well. Doris now going to go back to the worst moment in my child and has to do the Houston Astros. As you know the new york giants were way behind the brooklyn dodgers in 1951 and i think maybe your 14 games ahead speed. Bud fourteen to 15. Doris in there was a butcher shop in my neighborhood who are only giant fans and they had kept a running tally of everything that was going on that summer. It is so exciting, every time we would go there would be on top and the giants would be laid out and all of a sudden by mid august he started climbing and climbing and climbing. And they finally caught up to us and it was a threegame playoff and in that last game Bobby Thompson is the famous home run against ralph is called a shot around the world embarrassing lived in concord for 42 years and we go to the minuteman statute and take people all of the country to see the minuteman statute and the shots were heard around the world. An unthinking Bobby Thompson and i think something is wrong with this but anyway, years later, this guy josh did this book and wrote his story in which he discovered the electrician who claimed they had set up some sort of system in the giants part where in centerfield and a telescope and they were able to signal the pictures to the matters. And i think of what that did to all of us. And my sister who was beautiful in 15 years older than me predicted that he will and homerun. I was so mad at her that i didnt even want to speak to her. I was sure that she made it happen. It would not go back to the butcher shop users to adverse until he finally sent me the first farmers were sent to me, they called me grandma all of the time because my here was a red mark. Dear greg mark, please come back and we miss you. This is a huge part of childhood and i can imagine what its like for the fans of the dodgers and to know what is happening with houston now and a sophisticated system of cheating and what is based on doing and what can we do and technology will get better mentor and people have things in their ears. How will we prevent that. Stuart and youre right, sign ceiling has been part of the game but a different kind of signs dealing in players or try to pick up signals. If i could give you personal story i went to release field in the early 60s and they were playing the cubs and theres never much of a contest but the fact of the matter is sitting in the centerfield bleacher pitcher named bob. And he had a raincoat and he was stealing singles in the cubs finally figured out in the sixth inning. By having said that, this is a most unfortunate incident. No question about it but i think that rob manford current commissioner, dealt with it harshly. After all the manager lost his job, the general manager lost his job, they got 5 million which is the maximum you can find somebody. And they loss of first and second draft choices which really hurt for two years. And then to other managers lost their job including the manager of your favorite team. But i think people will understand the future now how serious this is in these work serious consequences for the houston club. Technology is Getting Better but sorely and i think that you will not see this happen again. Bud i have i will be very surprised if it does. But baseball is taking this very seriously and using every technological device they know to make sure that it does not happen again. And if somebody is idiotic enough to do it again, they will get penalized and severely as the Houston Astros. Doris was there an actual rule was violated. How does work. Bud in 2017, rob manford sent a memo to all of the clubs. It was no question about it and apparently, there are some people very often happens where they think it is for everybody us but not for them. They have ignored it and then they. A terrible price for it. And the rules are there they will come up with more rules and i am satisfied like a lot of other things that we go through, it was most unfortunate as a sent that cost a lot of people their jobs but it will not happen again and if it does, they will killed. Doris okay that sounds alright to me. A stock more personally. I love this thread in your book about your love of baseball working from and your mother, ukraine, going to games with her. And then obviously the Milwaukee Team that you got. Please tell some of the personal stories. The reason why baseball become so passionate in your case it was your mother. Bud it was and i remember my mother listening to games on the radio when as a little kid and she started taking me to games early on. That is how hard i became in the 40s, i would buy every baseball magazine and do the things that we did. Nolte a funny story about that. So in the 50s, we have a big luncheon and my mother is there and my mother and dad. A transistor radio on her ear and im dying. And in the midst of this motion, she is out, how do you like that, a grand slam homegrown and the whole room goes up. Bud so that is how it all happened in my head was good and he took me in the late 40s early 50s, we would go to chicago to see the yankees believe it or not i was a yankee fan because of joe dimaggio. But as my mother really did that. And when we got a team, she takes me to new york in 1949, my 15th birthday. And we go to the Yankees Stadium and were sitting in the upper deck and on my birthday july 30th. In the wheel a big cookout. And i really at the time, i said, how could you do that to me. And she said what youre talking about and i said the birthday cake up. It blows caseys birthday of the new york yankees. So we got over that and then to boston, then she wanted to go to art museums and she had many other interests. And then we get to fenway park in the yankees are playing in dimaggios coming back in the yankees are playing and we go to the ticket window and the guy sums it down and she said you cant do that, i got my boy. And he didnt give a damn about anything like that. We do not get in we walked around fenway park for a long time and we left. Three years later, really good, a big serious with the red sox and she had asked me she take me. I said of course you can come. And we go, put her down and i went into the clubhouse and i came back and she only had one when he came up. She said its a little different than 30 years ago. Doris talk about, i know you said one of your most crowded moments was keeping that team in milwaukee and being able to give milwaukee the team back. Someone should tell people that pretty. Bud leader the race came in milwaukee 1953 and had a remarkable team, never played under 500 and all of a sudden changed ownership in fact omalley, in 55 and 56, were using the braves, had to move because they had one of her weight over 2 Million People which was stunning in that day. The braves left and dont have enough time to tell the story. I am very sad and very unfair and is for the next five and half years and doris, the american lake, and a National League in a turndown and expansion. Thought we had the white sox bought and all of a sudden the seattle pirates were available and we wanted to keep them in seattle. And merc