Sunday, Manfred described the Commissioner’s Trophy, the statue awarded to each season’s champion, as a “piece of metal.” Could this errant statement put him in line to be another victim of the scandal?

We have had some good ones like A. Bartlett Giamatti, Fay Vincent, and Peter Ueberroth and we have a mix of mediocre and bad. Here is a summary going to the first commissioner - Landis.

Which brought to mind a question I have long had about sports commissioners - what IQ test do they have to pass?

The World Series trophy is the Commissioners Trophy with a flag for each city in the league. It is like the Lombardi Trophy ( a classier name) and the Stanley Cup. Players careers are focused on winning this trophy but Bleacher Report gave us this insight as he joins Crane, Hinch, and a host of others with foot in their mouth disease, ""In an effort to make a rhetorical point, I referred to the World Series trophy in a disrespectful way," he said. "... It was a mistake to say what I said."

"In an interview with ESPN's Karl Ravech earlier this week, Manfred called the Commissioner's Trophy a "piece of metal" when talking about the possibility of stripping the Houston Astros of their 2017 World Series title amid the ongoing fallout from their sign-stealing scandal."

He is supposed to be above that - right? Bowie Kuhn has been the MLB lawyer before becoming the commissioner and was named defendant in the Flood vs Kuhn antitrust lawsuit. He barred Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays for appearing at a Casino event - even though they did not gamble. Kuhn refused Atlanta's desire to sit Aaron for a three game series so he could break the record at home - Kuhn was not in attendance when Aaron did hit 715. He is in the HOF.

Bud Selig hated to get booed so after the tie all star game where he made the right decision he immediately made the wrong one and said the winner of the All Star Game would be the league that got home field advantage in the World Series. He also worked with Mr Pohlad on something called contraction! You might remember his uneven handling of PEDs, yet he is in the HOF and the players are not.

Lieutenant General Eckert was the fourth commissioner of baseball - he had not seen a baseball game in ten years when he was chosen. He refused to call games when JFK and MLK were assassinated and he was fired because the owners did not think he would handle a possible strike. Writers called him the unknown soldier.

Ford Frick was the third commissioner and had been a sportswriter. "Writer Jerome Holtzman described Frick's term as commissioner by saying that he "sailed a smooth course and seldom descended from his throne. When asked why he absented himself from the many battles below, he often said, 'It's a league matter.'... In retrospect, he understood his role. He was a caretaker, not a czar."" He was named to the HOF (which he helped found) and is the name on the annual writers award.

Happy Chandler, working to avoid a strike and to maintain the reserve clause worked with the Pirates - Chandler worked with Pirates officials. Part of Chandler's intervention included organizing a team of replacement players as a contingency plan; the team would have included Honus Wagner, then 72.

The defections to the Mexican league and the threat of a strike by the Pirates prompted owners to form an advisory committee, chaired by Larry MacPhail, to suggest needed changes that would calm the discontent among the players. The commissioner then stripped the language that said racial bias was the only reason for segregation in the game. He is in the HOF

Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis oversaw the Black Socks scandal, ""Regardless of the verdict of juries," the commissioner said in a statement, "no player that throws a ball game, no player that entertains proposals or promises to throw a game, no player that sits in a conference with a bunch of crooked players and gamblers where the ways and means of throwing games are discussed, and does not promptly tell his club about it, will ever again play professional baseball." Overall his reputation is on the Mt Rushmore of commissioners, but he could have risen even higher if he had led the way to integration since his father was a union fighter at Kenesaw Mountain. Yes - he is in the HOF.