Donald Fehr - was he good or bad for baseball?

[9RoyHobbsRF]

I saw Donald Fehr in the news today about a possible hockey strike and that brought back some not so good memories.

I (sorry) have an ability to read people when seeing their facial and body expressions and Fehr always approached me as a sour, dour, the sky is falling type and just a jerk.

I think he might have been good for the players but he and his union are a large part responsible for many of the problems baseball has today, from overpaid pampered millionaires to high ticket and related prices for fans to fighting drug testing to having disruptive strikes and everything related.

I use to love seeing millionaire ballplayers take stretch limos to union meetings get out and say "I need to put food on the table for my family"

If I had a magic wand and could take 3 or 4 people out of baseball history and undo what they did, Fehr would be at the top of my ist.

[Ben Grimm]

IIRC, Fehr was in place when the owners tried making a power move back in the 80s and they lost horribly. During his tenure, he kept the players' interest in mind and was hand-picked by Marvin Miller (who I think should have been in the HOF years ago).

I don't think he'll have the success in the NHL because the union simply isn't as strong. I'd say he did a pretty good job for what his title called of him to do.

[EdTarbusz]

He was extremely bad for baseball. The strenghth of the Players Association is detrimental to the sport. I'm generally pro-union, but this is a union that only a guy like George Will could love.

[Seels]

I don't agree with Roy much but his opener nails it. Fehr is probably one of the 2-3 worst people in the post ww2 baseball era.

[Honus Wagner Rules]

What exactly has Fehr done to "damage" baseball?

[Los Bravos]

Apparently...

He's really frowny.

[Ubiquitous]

Geez, just imagine how awesome baseball would be right now if this extremely bad for baseball person wasn't around. Perhaps small market teams like the Padres would sell for 2 billion dollars instead of $800 million. Baseball is in great shape and in terms of the economics of baseball if you can find something wrong with them it is largely nothing you can blame on the players.

Players took steroids and in terms of Fehr it wasn't like he was injecting players with drugs or doing so without their knowledge. So I'm not sure how you can lay that one on his doorstep.