(Reuters) ? Major League Baseball (MLB) Commissioner Bud Selig, who overcame a bumpy start with the cancellation of a World Series but then ensured decades of labor peace, received a two-year contract extension on Thursday that will extend his reign to 22 years.
The 77-year-old Selig's contract had been due to expire at the end of 2012, but MLB owners meeting in Arizona this week voted to extend the deal.
"I am very pleased that Commissioner Selig remained open to the wishes of the clubs and has agreed to continue in a role in which he excels," Paul Beeston, president and chief executive of the Toronto Blue Jays, said in a statement.
"The great prosperity of the game today is a reflection of Bud's record of accomplishment."
Selig has steered MLB policy since September 1992, first as interim commissioner and then as the ninth commissioner of the major leagues upon election by club owners in July 1998.
Each of the last eight years have produced the MLB's best-attended seasons, including four successive record seasons from 2004-2007. Industry revenues have soared to over $7 billion in each of the last two seasons from $1.2 billion in 1992.
Among his accomplishments, Selig implemented use of wild card team in MLB's playoffs and introduced interleague play.
After the jarring loss of the 1994 postseason following a players strike, Selig has presided over a stretch of labor peace that will span at least 21 years with a current agreement in place that will extend through 2016.
After commissioning an investigation into widespread use of performance enhancing drugs, Selig helped devise a program that, under the new labor pact, will make MLB the first North American professional sports league to test for human growth hormone.
"It is an honor to be asked to continue to serve the game of baseball, and I thank the clubs for their confidence in the direction in which we have taken the game," Selig said in a statement.
(Reporting by Larry Fine in New York; Editing by Frank Pingue)
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