Come To Think of It...Mark Cuban's Insider Trading Just the Ammo Selig Needs

Federal regulators have charged Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban with insider trading. And I'm guessing that Bud Selig is doing cartwheels over the news.

Look, make no mistake—Selig and his cronies want nothing to do with Cuban as a potential owner of a Major League Baseball franchise. Whether it's his willingness to spend money, his courtside antics, or his sheer anti-establishment attitude, Bud and Jerry Reinsdorf will do anything in their power to sway current Cubs owner and newspaper magnate Sam Zell to sell his Cubbies to another bidder.

And that's really a shame, for a guy like Cuban is just the kind of person the normally stodgy MLB needs. He's an owner, but he's also a fan. He wants to win, first and foremost.

He understands how to market his product. His antics aren't always out of pure frustration—they are sometimes calculated so that he will get more publicity for his Mavs. He considers the fines he pays to be merely advertising costs.

Of course, there are stories going around that claim Cuban never wanted to own the Cubs in the first place. He was apparently willing to go along with Sam Zell in an effort to drive up the price of the Cubs and to get Cuban in favor for a future bid of his hometown Pittsburgh Pirates.

But assuming his desire to own the Cubs is real, the timing of this news couldn't be much worse. Common sense tells you that Selig will use this as a public reason not to allow Cuban into his inner circle of rich owners.

Even if Cuban ends up beating this rap, the damage has been done. The Cuban "brand" has been tarnished.

So, if he wasn't already out as future Cubs owner, Mark Cuban certainly will be now. And come to think of it, that's too bad because his ability to react to bad news and sell quickly would have helped him in dealing with the contracts of Soriano and Fukudome.