“I shall be telling this with a sigh
Someplace ages and ages therefore:
Two roads diverged in a wooden, and I —
I took the one much less traveled by,
And that has made all of the distinction.”
NEW YORK – Robert Frost wasn’t pondering of Charlie Baker or Marty Walsh as he wandered the woods of New England searching for poetic inspiration.
Nor was he foreshadowing the careers of a former Massachusetts governor or Boston mayor when he penned The Highway Not Taken throughout his time in Outdated England.
Baker, the previous governor, says he “left public life because I was depressed over the state of the business.”
Maybe the enterprise of the Commonwealth performed a job in Baker’s shift from the State Home to NCAA headquarters. The wage didn’t harm both. Walsh left the Biden administration as labor secretary to guide the NHLPA — the place his reported pay jumped from $220,000 to $3 million per yr.
Walsh and Baker formally launched their uncommon transitions from politics to professional sports activities inside a two-week span in early 2023. Each have drawn typically favorable opinions of their present roles, regardless of challenges. Baker’s NCAA tenure has coincided with a flood of NIL cash and mounting litigation. The NCAA and its Energy 5 conferences just lately agreed to a $2.8 billion settlement involving athlete again pay and future NIL limits.
Walsh, in the meantime, initially confronted questions on his closeness with some NHL house owners, together with the Jacobs household. However he’s since received over gamers utilizing the identical retail politics honed as a union chief and state rep on Beacon Hill.
For Baker, navigating the Massachusetts Legislature was much less contentious than coping with the SEC.
“It’s just different. I had served in two administrations before I became governor. And I ran the second-largest nonprofit health plan in New England. I knew everybody — and had known a lot of them for years when I ran and got elected governor,” Baker mentioned Monday whereas chatting with the Related Press Sports Editors at their annual Commissioners Conferences. “Part of the reason I said I wanted to talk to all 97 conferences in my first 100 days was because I had a lot of learning and relationship development to do — stuff I didn’t have to do when I got elected governor. Almost everybody I was dealing with in the legislature and in the community — I knew those people. I had known them forever. It was a really different learning experience coming into this job. That was probably the biggest difference. If you’ve known somebody for 10 or 15 years, it’s just different than if you’ve known somebody for 10 or 15 days.”
NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman had excessive reward for Walsh on Tuesday. The league’s present CBA with the gamers’ union expires in September 2026, and labor peace stays a query till a brand new deal is signed. The final work stoppage shortened the 2012–13 season from 82 to 48 video games. However from the NHL’s Twenty seventh-floor government places of work in Midtown Manhattan, the skies seemed clear on this spring morning.
“He’s terrific. He’s had an unbelievably successful career — whether it was heading unions in Massachusetts, being the mayor of Boston, or being Secretary of Labor. He’s knowledgeable. He’s smart,” Bettman mentioned of Walsh. “He understands the importance of collaboration and working together. He’s been a terrific partner. That doesn’t mean that he doesn’t forcefully advocate for his constituency — he does. But he’s been great to deal with, both on a professional and personal level. I’m thrilled to have him as a partner in the NHL family.”
Baker wouldn’t speculate on whether or not the bounce from Bay State politics to nationwide sports activities management was a “Massachusetts thing” or pure coincidence.
“Marty and I are a little unique. He’s the son of a guy who ran the laborer’s union in Boston. He ran the laborer’s union before he ran for the state legislature and before he became mayor. He was Labor Secretary. And obviously, because he is from Boston, he’s a hockey fan — just like every good, red-blooded Bostonian. Including me. It’s just a bizarre coincidence,” Baker mentioned.
Walsh, 58, hails from Dorchester and is the son of Irish immigrants. He dropped out of school earlier than finally incomes his diploma in 2009, served within the legislature from 1997–2013, and was elected Boston mayor in 2013.
Baker, 10 years Walsh’s senior, has Colonial-era New York lineage — assume “A. Hamilton” and “A. Burr.” He’s the fourth Charlie Baker in his household. His father served within the Nixon and Reagan administrations. He went from Needham Excessive Faculty to Harvard and later earned an MBA from Northwestern’s Kellogg Faculty. He seemingly mastered Frost alongside the best way.
“We talked shop the entire time I was governor,” Baker mentioned. As of late, they speak “some.” However their jobs at the moment are as totally different as they have been a decade in the past — when Baker led the Commonwealth and Walsh occupied the mayor’s workplace at Boston Metropolis Corridor down the road.
“His gig is a lot different than mine. They have 30 teams. We have 1,100. They’re a much smaller organization. They’re organized a lot differently than we are. And it’s professional, as opposed to collegiate,” Baker mentioned.
Nonetheless, Baker sees one fixed whether or not you’re operating the NHLPA, the NCAA, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, or the Metropolis of Boston: “You don’t get to make all of the decisions.”
“You have to coerce, cajole, negotiate, engage to sort of make things happen. That part of it we’re both fairly familiar with,” he mentioned.
Gov. Healey, the WNBA is on Line Two.
Contact Invoice Speros (@RealOBF and @BillSperos on X) • bsperos1@gmail.com
