Lynne Sladky/Associated Press
Long before the first batter stepped into the box at the start of his tenure as the 10th commissioner in baseball history, Rob Manfred threw out his own first pitch: Chief among his priorities would be to captivate the next generation of sports fans in a way that he was captivated when his parents took him to Yankee Stadium for the first time in 1968.
He watched his hero Mickey Mantle hit a home run from both sides of the plate that August day in 1968 and has kept his passion for the sport ever since.