Randy Levine's reported mother-in-law connection to Bud Selig

Which may or may not be a good thing:

• In 1996 Randy Levine worked for the owners negotiating a new players' agreement. Owners themselves were divided on Mr. Levine's plan to the point where one faction tried to remove him from the job:

(NY Times, 11/3/96, by Murray Chass): "In the attack on (Randy) Levine, in a Chicago paper, unnamed owners called for his dismissal, saying the only reason he would not be fired was

• that his mother-in-law is a friend of Selig's wife."

From NY Times by Murray Chass, 11/3/96, "Labor Deal in Jeopardy as Selig Stays Silent."

• (David Peterson, 4/97): "More revealing still was New York Times Baseball writer Murray Chass, In Chass's November 3 story about some of the internecine struggles then taking place among the 30 ownership groups that comprise the Baseball cartel, he fingered a mysteriously

unnamed Chicago-area sportswriter for helping Reinsdorf plant what Chass called an "attack on [Randy] Levine" in one of the Chicago newspapers.

• "In the attack on Levine, in a Chicago paper, unnamed owners called for his dismissal, saying the only reason he would not be fired was that his mother-in-law is a friend of Selig's wife," was how Chass described the smear campaign coming from within the owners' ranks.

"Reinsdorf's hand appeared to be so evident in that attack," Chass continued, "that during a conference call of Major League Baseball's executive council [on Oct. 30], other owners criticized Reinsdorf, a council member, for it." ("A Silent Selig Speaks Volumes About His Take on the Talks," Nov. 3.)

• Just three days before, in his "On Baseball" column., (Jerome) Holtzman had quoted an unnamed owner who averred that "Randy's mother-in-law [who's from Milwaukee] is one of Sue Selig's best friends. [Sue is Selig's wife]. What Randy has done is horrendous. Bud is bleeding and very hurt, but there isn't much he can do."

Pretty good smear. In his effort to help Reinsdorf smear Levine, Holtzman went so far as to charge Levine with assisting Donald Fehr in Fehr's effort to smear the owners by "putting a monkey on the owners' back: clearly, they are the ogres," said Holtzman, mocking Fehr and Levine. ("Owners doubt that Levine is the real deal," Chicago Tribune, Oct. 30.)"

• By David Peterson, from "Chicago Ink April 1997," ink.uchicago.edu/page_olga_made/archives/april97/holtz.html, "A Stenographer to Power: Jerome Holtzman"

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