Bud Selig, the outgoing baseball commissioner, has always touted himself as a student of history, but students of his history have to be wary when he relates it. Case in point:

Telling the New York Daily News recently about an incident he had with George Steinbrenner, Selig said, “I think I was more hurt than mad. I had worked so hard to get George back after what” – then Commissioner Fay Vincent – “had done to him, depriving him his rights. But it didn’t scar our relationship.”

Two elements of Selig’s statement are highly questionable, sounding more like revisionist history than just plain old history. Vincent did not deprive the New York Yankees’ owner of any rights Selig might have thought he had, and nothing Selig did prompted Vincent to reinstate Steinbrenner in 1993.

“George Steinbrenner had very few rights in private industry,” Vincent said, reluctantly commenting on issues more than two decades in the past. “They are very restricted.”

In addition, Vincent said Wednesday by telephone from Florida, “As an owner, he had signed the ownership agreement, which includes all baseball rules. Ownership yielded all powers to the commissioner.”

According to John Dowd, the Washington, D.C., lawyer who investigated Steinbrenner’s use of Howard Spira, a small-time gambler, to get derogatory information about Dave Winfield, Steinbrenner’s lawyers triggered the idea that Vincent was trampling on Steinbrenner’s rights.

“His lawyers knew he was dead in the water,” Dowd said in a telephone interview. “That’s when they started this nonsense. They tried to create a circus.”

Steinbrenner, Vincent said, “never claimed I violated his rights.”

Nor, Vincent said, “was Steinbrenner going to argue the merits of what he did to Winfield.”

Lawyers for Yankees’ officials also went after Vincent in 1992 when the commissioner was in the process of dealing with a lifetime suspension for relief pitcher Steve Howe for his seventh drug suspension.

In both instances the Daily News swallowed what I can only describe as the lawyers’ desperate claims, and the newspaper’s chief baseball writer, Bill Madden, featured them in his 2010 book about Steinbrenner.

Selig, who should have known and probably did know better, also swallowed the lawyers’ claims. As baseball commissioner, if not earlier, he would have been expected to support Vincent’s action against Steinbrenner, no matter how close they might have been.

Steinbrenner admitted meeting with Spira and paying him $40,000, though he claimed Spira had extorted the money from him.

“We had a pad of the most beautiful handwriting I’ve ever seen by one of Steinbrenner’s assistants,” Dowd said. “It recorded what was said at internal meetings, what Steinbrenner’s desire was to get Winfield. You talk about a smoking gun.”

Nevertheless, some owners formed a committee to conduct their own investigation into whether Vincent violated Steinbrenner’s rights in the process of his investigation.

Selig wasn’t the chairman of the committee – the chairmen were Jerry Reinsdorf of the Chicago White Sox and Bill Bartholomay of the Atlanta Braves – but based on Selig’s comment to the Daily News – “I had worked so hard to get George back” – the Brewers’ owner presumably was intimately involved in the committee’s effort.

Dowd said he unsuccessfully tried to obtain a copy of the committee’s report, but it would surprise no one if the report found that Vincent had violated Steinbrenner’s rights. Given the timing of the committee’s action, coming not long before a Selig-led effort to oust Vincent, it was very likely that the support-Steinbrenner move was an early element of that plan.

As for the possibility that Selig’s stated effort influenced Vincent’s decision to reinstate Steinbrenner, that idea is unsubstantiated by developments.

“There was no pressure from the owners,” Dowd said.

Vincent initially planned to suspend Steinbrenner for two years, but the owner didn’t like that idea. He was involved with the United States Olympic Committee, and he was concerned that a suspension would undermine his position. Instead, bizarrely, he opted for a life suspension.

Before long, Steinbrenner realized what he had done, admitted his mistake to Vincent and sought reinstatement.

“The original penalty was two years so I decided to let him back after two years,” Vincent said, noting that no one influenced his decision. On July 24, 1992, Vincent announced that Steinbrenner would be permitted to return the following March 1.

By the time Steinbrenner was back running the Yankees, Vincent was gone, having resigned under pressure nearly six months earlier. Selig was now the acting commissioner.

The Daily News article contained another interesting element. It quoted Selig as telling what he learned from the owner he has always called his mentor, John Fetzer of the Detroit Tigers.

“‘Buddy, you have to do what’s in the best interest of baseball, not in the best interest of the Detroit Tigers or, in your case, the Milwaukee Brewers,’” Selig said Fetzer told him.

“I never forgot that,” Selig told the News. “It may sound trite, but the sport transcends all of us. We’re the caretakers of this generation. It’s a painful lesson that some in this business never learn.”

Selig may disagree with me, but I think he has forgotten Fetzer’s advice with his blatantly bad treatment of Lew Wolff, his college fraternity brother, long-time friend and owner of the Oakland Athletics.

Wolff wants to move the A’s to San Jose, but Selig has refused to act on his request. Nearly six years ago, the commissioner appointed a three-man committee to study the matter, and according to Selig, those poor guys are still studying and Wolff and the Athletics remain mired in Oakland.

The way I see it a move to San Jose, which the Giants claim as their territory and refuse to relinquish it, would be in baseball’s best interests. It would put the major leagues in a new vibrant city, would allow the A’s to flourish in a new home and give the Giants the whole Bay Area. How could MLB not benefit?

Given the time of year, maybe the ghost of Fetzer past could pay a midnight visit to Selig in the next week and remind Buddy what he told him years ago.