Jane Leavy did not talk to Rob Manfred for her new book “Make Me Commissioner: I Know What’s Wrong With Baseball and How To Fix It,” even though it is a bid to replace the commissioner of Major League Baseball when Manfred steps down in — what he has proclaimed — will be early 2029.
“I have not spoken to Rob,” Leavy said recently. “I asked for an interview but I didn’t get one. This (book) was sort of liberating. I didn’t have to speak to anyone I didn’t want to. I didn’t have to speak to idiots. I wanted to interview people who would speak their mind.”
The latest book from Leavy, who has written highly acclaimed biographies of Sandy Koufax, Mickey Mantle and Babe Ruth, is part love letter and part comic takedown of the sport she has adored her entire life. She set out to find out what had gone wrong with a game that many, including Koufax and Joe Torre told her was unwatchable and with a league that had to hire Theo Epstein in 2021 to “fix” its product.
