In the more than two decades Bud Selig has been Commissioner of Major League Baseball, the landscape has been dramatically transformed. There is labor peace and, not coincidentally, record attendance and revenues. New stadiums have sprouted. Wild Cards and Interleague Play have been introduced. The World Baseball Classic has made baseball a global industry.

And none of that had anything to do with why Selig was at the St. Regis Hotel on Thursday night to accept the B’nai B’rith International 2013 Distinguished Humanitarian Award.

The Commissioner talks often about the sport’s role as a social institution. And it’s not just words. There are Urban Youth Academies and the Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities (RBI) program. There is Stand Up 2 Cancer, not to mention the Mother’s Day breast cancer and Father’s Day prostate cancer initiatives and skin cancer awareness…more.