[MD Longhorn]

I don’t think “best interests” is nearly as broad as you imply here. In the Cubs case, a judge ruled that the clause was “applicable only to internal baseball relationships between teams or between teams and players.” Even the current Texas Rangers situation is shaky regarding this clause – and if he invokes it, it will definitely go to court.

“Best interests” does not even apply (yet) to interactions between the league and umpires, Sandy Alderson notwithstanding.

Selig himself wrote, “the Best interests powers are inherently narrow and created to ensure the integrity of the game.”

Put it this way … Bud could not invoke Best Interests to enforce instant replay to allow for changes to umpires calls. He had to use collective bargaining to change the agreement between MLB and WUA. So how could Best Interests apply to this … which is essentially the same thing – using instant replay to change a call (however long after the fact)… the agreement is VERY specific about what calls can be reversed via replay, and one umpire nearly lost his job over going outside the bounds of that agreement.