The word tampering is seldom heard in baseball these days; many people, maybe most, don’t even understand the concept. If someone suggests a team has tampered with a player or other personnel, the people allegedly involved in the illegal act quickly deny the accusation and it goes away.

Unless my memory betrays me, I don’t think that Bud Selig, in his 22 years as commissioner, has ever investigated an alleged case of tampering. A baseball official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said he believes the commissioner’s office has investigated some tampering charges, but he couldn’t cite any and he said the outcomes of such investigations are generally confidential.

Selig has maintained a laissez-faire approach to the …

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The previous column on declining television audiences for the World Series prompted interesting enough responses to warrant a second column on the subject. First, a review of the developments from the recently concluded World Series between the winning Giants and the losing Royals:

* It had the third smallest audience of the 41 World Series that have been tracked since 1973.
* Of the 13 World Series that have gone seven games in that time, it had the smallest audience.
* It was the 10th successive World Series that drew an average audience under 20 million. In the last 21 of Bud Selig’s 22-year tenure as commissioner, the World Series television audience has been below 30 million.
* Regular-season National Football League games have drawn higher Nielsen ratings than this year’s World Series games. National Basketball Association finals have drawn higher Nielsen ratings the last five years and six of the last seven.

Readers have offered a variety of reasons for the decline in viewers …

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With the season over, Commissioner Bud Selig has no more ballpark visits to make on his grand tour as he prepares to retire after 22 years in office. Selig visited every park to make sure reporters and fans remembered him and all the good work he has done during his unusually lengthy tenure.

Selig is proud of his legacy, as he should be for the most part, and his legacy is important to him. But how about these developments for the final peg in his legacy:

* As his final public act before he retires Jan. 25, Selig has presided over what would have been a disaster had it not been for Madison Bumgarner and Game 7.
* Despite Bumgarner’s awesome efforts, this World Series was still the third least watched World Series in the 41-year history of ratings for televised World Series.
* It was the least watched series of the 13 seven-game series covered by the ratings.
* The Series got off to a poor start when the opener was the least watched Game 1 ever, and Games 3 and 4 were watched by even fewer viewers.

I am not talking about …

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