Peter Uberroth replaces Bowie Kuhn as baseball’s commissioner, the sixth since the office was instituted following the Black Sox Scandal.
What follows is a review I wrote for the SABR Bibliography Committee newsletter in 1999 following the release of Jerome Holtzman’s The Commissioners.
Holtzman, one of baseball’s premier sportswriters of our time, has compiled profiles of baseball’s ultimate executives. Beginning with the craggy, imperious Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, owner of one of the game’s most recognizable faces, through Bud Selig, until recently the longest-running interim commissioner, Holtzman’s portrayals are, for the most part, not very complimentary. If one is to believe him, none of the nine men to hold the game’s highest position deserves top grades.
Landis, as we have often read, was chosen because he was steadfast and upright (although generally acknowledged as a mediocre jurist at best). In the early 1920s he was Moses, leading the national pastime out of the desert created by gamblers who had plagued the game. As most fans know, the eight Chicago players in the Black Sox scandal were never convicted of any crimes, but that wasn’t good enough for Landis. In his famous statement following the court ruling (J.G. Taylor Spink, Judge Landis and Twenty-Five Years of Baseball, 1947, p.84), he declared: “Regardless of the verdict of juries, no player that throws a ball game, no player that entertains proposals or promises to throw a ball game, no player that sits in a conference with a bunch of crooked players and gamblers where the ways and means of throwing games are discussed, and does not promptly tell his club about it, will ever play professional baseball.” Hence the legendary expression “eight men out”.
Landis may not have been the fairest man to occupy the commissioner’s office, but he certainly was decisive. “My decision, right or wrong” was his motto (though he rarely, if ever, admitted to being wrong). He banished a goodly number of players from the majors during his 24 years in office, in the process making another concept famous: “conduct detrimental to the game”. He also fiddled with the reserve clause (shaping it as he saw fit at the moment) and the burgeoning farm systems, and kept the game “pure” by holding fast to the gentlemen’s agreement to keep black players out of organized ball.
But The Commissioners focuses less on biographical sketches than it does with the politics of the office. And make no mistake, the Commissionership is no less filled with political intrigue than that of President of the United States. Holtzman conjures up the image of smoke-filled rooms where a few powerful men decide, in effect, the fate of the nation through its national sport. Deals and alliances play their parts, as in any political wranglings, regardless of scale.
Holtzman, whose other fine books include No Cheering in the Press Box, brings to mind the writings of Theodore White, who chronicled numerous Presidential elections, as he discusses the bickering and bantering by club owners as they cast their ballots. In the case of General William D. Eckert, the executives thought they were actually voting for General Eugene M. Zuckert (as if that would have made more sense – it’s difficult to believe that out of 156 candidates, Eckert, or Zuckert, was the best they could come up with).
The author characterizes each commissioner according to the crises he faced:
- Landis, the birth of the commissioner’s office and making baseball “America’s game” again.
- Happy Chandler, who bashed heads with the Dodgers over Leo Durocher, while at the same time paving the way (or did he?) for Jackie Robinson to break the color line.
- Ford Frick, former sportswriter (and Babe Ruth’s ghostwriter) who, for all the other events that occurred during his watch (relocation, expansion, television, the decline of the minor leagues), will forever be remembered for the “asterisk” he affixed to Roger Maris’ home run mark.
- Eckert, whom one writer referred to as “the Unknown Soldier”.
- Bowie Kuhn, who saw free agency, new expansion, the designated hitter, and a more active players’ union change the game forever.
- Peter Ueberroth, who tried to parlay his success with the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics into big bucks for baseball.
- A. Bartlett Giamatti, a poetic soul who died in office, perhaps as a result of the disillusionment of the Pete Rose affair.
- Fay Vincent, who served during the 1989 “earthquake” World Series and who, upon leaving the post, claimed: “To do this job without angering an owner is impossible. I can’t make all 28 of my bosses happy.”
- Selig, the reluctant commissioner, who had the misfortunes of running the sport during what some consider its darkest days but survived to see a renaissance season in 1998.
The various owners and decisionmakers throughout the decades have always formed one of the most exclusive clubs in America (including, as of 1969, Canada). Realizing the mistake in agreeing to Landis’ demand for a lifetime contract, they made sure that ensuing commissioners would have the teams’ interests on a par with baseball as a whole by opting for fixed terms. The desire for continuous employment might cause baseball’s big bosses to be more cautious in their dicta.
Of course, there were a fair share of mavericks who incurred the wrath of their owner brethren; e.g. Bill Veeck was a perennial thorn in the establishment’s side and therefore thwarted whenever possible. When Veeck opined that African-Americans should be allowed to play in the majors, Landis helped to quickly quash that notion. Years later, Veeck was forced to sell his floundering St. Louis Browns when the majority of his fellow owners voted down his plea to relocate to a more lucrative location. As soon as the Browns were purchased, that same request was granted to the team’s new owner. Another pain-in-the-neck owner (readinnovator) named Charles O. Finley tried to sell three of his marquee players for a combined $3.5 million; this time, commissioner Kuhn stepped in to negate the deal as “not in the best interests….”
Kuhn, in fact, merits the most ink, as his tenure saw the most turmoil. There is a fascinating depiction of the events leading up to the lawsuit filed by Finley when Kuhn axed his deals (referring to Kuhn as “the village idiot” in the process).
Holtzman does manage to show a degree of sympathy for some of the men who filled the position: “history has not been kind to Ford Frick”, and the belief that Eckert and Ueberroth were in over their heads. Overall, The Commissioners is an insightful look at the men who oversaw the business of baseball. And after reading this book, you will understand, if you haven’t up to now, that the sport is no game.
The Amazon Report:Made in America: His Own Story
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