Manfred Given Five Year Term as Commissioner of Major League Baseball

As many of you know Bud Selig will only be the commissioner of Major League Baseball for a couple more months before Rob Manfred takes over in January. That much we know but what we did not until this week was for how long and today we learned that his first term will be for five seasons. Selig announced that the baseball owners unanimously approved the five year term for Manfred at the conclusion of the GM and owners Meetings in Kansas City.

Manfred has worked for MLB since 1998 and will take over the position officially on January, 25^th replacing the 80 year old Selig. Manfred wants to attract young fans back to baseball while he is commissioner and vows to improve and speed up the game. An average MLB game in 1981 was 2 hours, 22 minutes but has jumped to 3 hours, 02 minutes in 2014 with the addition of instant replay. In the postseason the games stretched to nearly 4 hours so I can understand the concern for the new commissioner.