Commissioner Rob Manfred has the authority to act in “the best interests of baseball,” an amorphous clause in Major League Baseball’s constitution that dates to 1921 when baseball’s first commissioner, Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, was given wide-ranging power to police the game.
With great power comes great responsibility, and nothing is more important in baseball right now than getting to the bottom of the crazy torrent of home runs that threatens to ruin the game we love.
MLB is on pace for 6,712 home runs this season, which would be 1,100 more than a year ago, and an increase of more than 600 over the record 6,105 blasts in 2017.