The past year was not what Lew Wolff had in mind when he became the Oakland Athletics’ owner in 2005. The Athletics finished last season with their worst won-loss record and most distant division finish in Wolff’s four-year tenure. As if that development were not frustrating enough, Wolff felt forced to scrap his plans for a new park in Fremont 22 miles south of the team’s long-time home in Oakland.

Billy Beane, the team’s talented general manager, made some player moves during the winter that could help the Athletics come back on the field and in the standings in the coming season. His boss has a far more difficult task finding a city in northern California to house the team.

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Commissioner Bud Selig was a history major in college and has been a history buff post-college. When it comes to certain aspects of baseball history, however, he has a peculiar sense of that history. He often recalls it differently from what really happened.

He will not like reading that (he said earlier this year I used to spoil his Sunday mornings), but I have to say the same thing he did when I tried to discuss these matters with him the other day: “All I can say is I have to recite the history of the past decade the way it was.”

The commissioner wouldn’t say much else on the record despite my urging him to. I wanted to have a full discussion with him for the 100th column of this Web site about certain developments of the past 25 years relating to drug testing:

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There is no way getting away from it or around it. Before you waste any more time trying, resign yourself to the reality that this year will be all A-Rod all the time. It is incredible how this happens with Alex Rodriguez.

In only two months of this calendar year, he has required more coverage than a Geico office full of policyholders.

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