Baseball. Blogging. Whenever.

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Meet the new boss. Not the same as the old boss.

Every week, [Michael] Weiner and his trademark blue jeans stride down to his basement classroom and teach Sunday school to one of the few congregations less orderly than major league baseball owners . . . An anchor role in baseball’s often nasty pastime-or-business identity crisis will almost certainly test Weiner’s reputation for being a stunningly regular guy. He wears blue jeans and Chuck Taylor All-Stars to all but the most solemn of affairs. He is the son of a New Jersey construction worker. He suspects that the last time he combed his unruly and increasingly occasional hair was before his sister’s 1998 wedding.

But just as Weiner’s contemporaries smile at his quirks, they emphasize that he also may be the smartest person they have ever known. It is this duality that makes Weiner, the union’s general counsel, so popular among the players he represents and the management side he negotiates with; whether it resonates with fans will be learned after he is elected and has to call a news conference someday, perhaps to deliver bad news — up to and including a strike.

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