PITTSBURGH - Baseball commissioner Bud Selig has achieved labor peace, instituted drug testing and extorted new ballparks out of cities across North America.
With that kind of winning streak, no wonder he's willing to take on an impossible challenge:
He's trying to make sports media types presentable.
Last week MLB issued a dress code for media to follow.
One of the few genuine perks of this business is having casual Friday as a seven-day proposition. The "Odd Couple's" Oscar Madison wasn't that much of a caricature.
Often we're interviewing people who are in towels or underwear.
Jim Leyland was fond of holding court while wearing just shorts and his cap, often propping his bare feet on the desk and picking sock lint off his toes as he talked.
There's not a lot of formality.
The Pirates had a mandatory Hawaiian shirt trip last year, a look rarely favored by IBM guys when they travel as a group.
Much of the MLB policy seems to be aimed at women, including the provision that skirts should be no shorter than four inches from the knee.
No word on who will measure them, but there have been instances where a female journalist's attire has been conspicuous.
A couple of summers ago, KDKA-TV had a bevy of interns who seemed to be dressing for a day at Kennywood. Players noticed.
One of the station's veteran female reporters called the younger ones aside to suggest they tone things down on locker room duty.
Tears were shed during the lecture, but midriffs were covered afterward.
One of the issues is the wearing of loathsome flip flops.
Apparently MLB trainers raised concern that uncovered feet potentially spread germs.
Foot nudity is an epidemic in this country. Summer comes, and no one seems to mind that a quarter-inch of some cheap polymer is all that's between their feet and the spit, gum, cigarette butts and dog drool bonded to hot sidewalks.
So covering feet is not only acceptable, it's necessary.
The odd thing here is MLB can't even enforce a dress code for players. Pants are long enough to cover shoe tops, players wear caps over their ears, and World Series managers sport cheap-looking hoodies.
Fans who arrive early to watch batting practice see most players wearing baggy pullovers that have no name or number on the back.
Maybe that's something MLB could police before worrying about the handful of hopeless fashion misfits in the press box.
Mehno can be reached at johnmehnocolumn@gmail.com.
