A family matter: Selig celebrates HOF honor

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — The most overwhelming day in Bud Selig’s professional life began as just another Sunday. He navigated Milwaukee’s first snowfall of the season to fulfill his longtime lunch routine — a hot dog and Diet Coke from Gilles Frozen Custard — before returning to Bayside, Wis., to watch the Green Bay Packers’ game in his home office.

At 4:20 p.m. CT (Selig’s wife Sue noted the time), the telephone rang. It was Jane Forbes Clark, chairman of the National Baseball Hall of Fame, informing Selig he’d been elected to Cooperstown.

“I ran in there, and you could just see the nervousness pass for him,” Sue said.

Selig, the former Brewers owner and Major League Baseball Commissioner, will be enshrined in a ceremony on July 30, 2017. It comes on his 83rd birthday.

“This was not just another day, I’ll tell you,” Sue said of the buildup to Sunday’s announcement. “He was uptight about this whole thing. He is very superstitious, so for weeks now, I was told not to talk about this.”

Selig’s daughter, former Brewers president Wendy Selig-Prieb, held out as long as she could. She was home in New York and thought the announcement would come in the late morning or early afternoon, so she carried her phone in her hand all day.

Shortly after kickoff of that Packers game, …

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