The Selig Doctrine

For those interested in the history and historiography of baseball, the Washington Post has called last night's decision the Selig Doctrine: No World Series will end with a game played less than nine innings.

While last night's game should never have been started, baseball did right to suspend it when it did, as opposed to calling the game short while the Phillies had a 2-1 lead, and thus cheating the Rays out of their possible final three innings of baseball.

It shouldn't strike any of us as a new concept; I don't think you could find a baseball fan that would not have been aghast at the idea of a rain-shortened World Series game, but now that it's official, hey maybe Bud will have something to add to his legacy other than the steroids scandal!