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DAN SHAUGHNESSY

Red Sox fans owe a debt of gratitude to Bud Selig

Bud Selig (left) presented the World Series trophy to Red Sox owners Tom Werner and John Henry in 2013.Greg M. Cooper/usa today sports/file/USA Today Sports

If you are a Red Sox fan, Bud Selig was your friend.

The predictable howling started across baseball America when Selig was elected to the Hall of Fame Sunday, but Sox fans should be sending him thank-you notes for a lot of the good things that have happened to the Boston franchise in this century.

Maligning Selig is a popular parlor game on sports talk radio and across the ever-expanding band of social media. Bud gets blamed for steroids, the cancellation of the 1994 World Series, the All-Star tie in Milwaukee, late-night World Series games, four-hour games, ticket costs, and David Price’s inability to win a playoff start. Swell.

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But the totality of his 23 years as commissioner amounts to far more positive than negative, and here in Boston, Selig gets an assist for the championships won in 2004, 2007, and 2013.

It’s simple, really. When the Red Sox were for sale in 2001, it was Selig who assembled John Henry, Tom Werner, and Larry Lucchino and maneuvered the sale in the direction of the Henry group.

“I had nothing to do with any of that,’’ Bud once told me, before adding, “But someday you’ll thank me for it.’’

Selig had a lot to do with it. It was Selig who connected Lucchino with Henry when Henry was dealing with ballpark and ownership issues with the Florida Marlins. Henry was working on selling the Marlins and buying the Angels in 2001. Lucchino, who knew Werner from San Diego, put Henry together with Werner, who was then trying to buy the Red Sox with underfinanced partner Les Otten.

At the urging of Selig, Yawkey Trust boss John Harrington agreed to accept the bid of the Henry group. When MLB owners voted to the approve the sale, Selig made sure the vote was unanimous. Henry, Werner, and Lucchino were Bud’s guys.

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Uncle Bud had a hand in a couple of other decisions that helped the Red Sox. Selig brought the wild card to baseball’s playoffs, and the Red Sox were a second-place team, finishing three games behind the Yankees when they broke the 86-year curse in 2004.

Oh, and that goofy World Series home-field advantage that was decided by the winner of the All-Star Game? That was another Selig invention. And the Red Sox had home field in all three of their championship runs in the 21st century.

Selig was not prescient when it came to assessing Fenway’s future. In 1999, he said, “The Red Sox can’t survive without a new ballpark. We can talk about how it’s regrettable and it’s wrong that the economics have forced clubs to do this, but given where they are with Fenway, they just need a new stadium.’’

Bud was wrong about that one, but it was his appointed custodians of Boston baseball who saved Fenway from the wrecking ball.

The relationship between Selig and the Red Sox was somewhat strained in the later years of his commissionership. Henry pushed back on revenue sharing and the luxury-tax threshold, and Werner made a campaign to succeed Selig — contesting Selig’s handpicked successor, Rob Manfred. But overall, all parties (including Sox fans) have benefitted from the relationship, and the Sox are certain to send a contingent to Cooperstown to honor Selig when he is enshrined in July.

Selig is always going to be associated with the Steroid Era of baseball. Fair enough. He was commissioner when players started posting cartoonish numbers, and there’s a good argument that the lords of the game buried their heads in the sand when the homers started flying out of the ballparks in the wake of the 1994 strike and the hideous 1995 spring training (remember replacement players?).

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Homers were good for the game. And a guy like Sammy Sosa could hit 60 or more three different times. All true. But the record needs to reflect that it was Donald Fehr and the mighty Major League Baseball Players Association that stood in the way of serious drug testing. In those years, everything was a bargaining chip for the PA, even an issue that dealt with the health of the membership.

John Schuerholz, the other baseball executive who was selected by the Today’s Game Era Committee Sunday, also has connections to the Red Sox. Schuerholz, who won championships with the Royals (1985) and Braves (1995), got his start in baseball from longtime Red Sox general manager Lou Gorman.

Schuerholz was a junior high school teacher in his native Baltimore when he was hired by Orioles underling Gorman. When Gorman left Baltimore to start the expansion franchise in Kansas City, he took Schuerholz with him.

“I count my blessings daily, and high among them is the good fortune I had to begin my baseball career under the guidance of Lou Gorman,’’ Schuerholz said in support of Gorman’s Red Sox book in 2005. “I thought I loved this game, but I learned that he loved it even more.

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“Gorman taught me the value of working with good people and hard work. He was a master of interpersonal relationships.’’

Former Astro Jeff Bagwell is the former player most likely to join Selig and Schuerholz in Cooperstown next summer. Bagwell was up to 71.6 percent in the voting last year (75 percent is required) and should get the nod when results of the 2016 writer voting are announced Jan. 18.

You all know Bagwell’s connection to the Red Sox. Bagwell was drafted by the Sox and traded to the Astros for reliever Larry Andersen in 1990. The stupefying trade was made by Lou Gorman.

Bud Selig. John Schuerholz. Jeff Bagwell. All Cooperstown-bound.

As ever, it’s always about us. It’s always about the Red Sox.


Dan Shaughnessy is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at dshaughnessy@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @Dan_Shaughnessy.