Bowie Kuhn

Bowie Kuhn was Commissioner of Major League Baseball (MLB) for a quarter-century during arguable its most important epoch aside from the founding of the two major leagues, as he oversee the volatile era that saw the end of baseball's reserve clause and the advent of free agency. Before he was appointed commissioner by MLB owners, he had served as the National League and MLB legal counsel for almost 20 years. Born in Takoma Park, Maryland on October 28, 1926 and raised in Washington, D.C., Kukn matriculated at Franklin and Marshall College under the U.S. Navy's V-12 Officer Training Program before going on to Princeton University in 1945. After graduating from Princeton with honors in 1947 with a degree in economics, he attended the University of Virginia Law School, from which he graduated in 1950. He then joined the New York law firm Willkie, Farr & Gallagher, which he reportedly chose because it represented the National League. After the owners forced out retired Air Force General William Eckert in 1968, who wasn't considered savvy about MLB politics (such as the inordinate amount of influence wielded by a few owners and their absolute antipathy towards the fledgling baseball players union, as they considered their players chattel), Kukn was appointed Commissioner, assuming office on February 4, 1969. As Commissioner, he would oversee a major work stoppage in 1972 and the first strike to hit organized sports in 1981. At the time of his assuming the post, many observers complained that baseball was too old-fashioned for the Swinging Sixties, a decade which saw the National Football League seriously challenge baseball's primacy as "America's past-time. Unlike the slow, stately paced baseball, football was television friendly, and it was television that pushed the sport to unprecedented levels of popularity in the 1960s. Football overcame baseball as the "Withit" sport as it featured violence that could be shot from many angles, with plays slowed down and instantly replayed for a mass audience (many of whom had bet on the outcome of games). However, by the time Bowie Kuhn left office on September 30, 1984, baseball was enjoying its greatest popularity, with attendance up from 23 million in 1968 to 45.5 million in 1983 and money television contracts having vastly expanded during the same time frame. Kuhn proved to be a firm commissioner when it came to matters of discipline with both players and owners, though he was criticized by the players for serving the best interests of the owners (which was natural, the Commissioner being appointed by and serving at the pleasure of MLB's owners). During his tenure, he suspended numerous players for drug involvement and barred both Willie Mays (in 1979) and Mickey Mantle (in 1983) from the sport due to their involvement in casino promotion. (Both superstars subsequently were reinstated by Kuhn's successor, Peter Ueberroth, after he assumed the post of commissioner in 1985). He also levied the first suspension of New York Yankees owner George M. Steinbrenner III, after "The Boss" was convicted of making illegal campaign contribution to President Richard Nixon's reelection campaign. (Steinbrenner felt he was unfairly treated as he, a shipbuilder dependent upon government contracts and a member of the Democratic Party to boot, had been shaken down by the corrupt President.) Oakland A's owner Charles O. Finley also incurred the Wrath of Kuhn. It had been Finley's idea to stage World Series games at night so that they could attract a larger TV audience, an innovation first implemented in 1971. Finley didn't like it that Kukn seemingly was credited with his idea. Finley proved a major embarrassment to MLB when he forced second baseman Mike Andrews to sign a false affidavit saying he was injured after he committed two consecutive errors in the 12th inning of Oakland's Game 2 loss to the New York Mets during the 1973 World Series. After A's manager Dick Williams and A's players led by team captain Sal Bando rallied to Andrew' defense, Kuhn forced Finley to reinstate Andrews. In 1976, when Finley -- in reaction to the imposition of free agency in baseball that would "free the slaves" and fatten the bank accounts of Mercedes dealers beginning with the end of the 1976 season -- attempted to sell several players who were potential free agents to the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees for $3.5 million, Kuhn blocked the deals on the grounds that they would be bad for the game. Towards the end of his commissionership, four players from the Kansas City Royals were found guilty of cocaine use in 1983. In addition, established stars as Ferguson Jenkins, Keith Hernandez, Dave Parker, and Dale Berra admitted to having problems with drugs. The drug mess threatened to tarnish the image of baseball, but Kuhn was very firm in disciplining players who abused drugs (in contrast to current Commissioner Bud Selig, who ignored the steroids problem as the unprecedented numbers of home runs hit by artificially bulked up players was deemed good for business). Bowie Kuhn was both praised and attacked for his firm stand against offenders, and he also had antagonized some owners over his ineffectual leadership during the 1981 baseball strike, which ended with a clear victory for the players union. In 1982, some of the owners organized a move to push him out of office. In 1983, Kuhn and his supporters made a last-ditch effort to renew his contract but ultimately failed as many MLB owners didn't think he could handle an upcoming work stoppage by the players union. It was announced that he was to be replaced with businessman and 1984 Los Angeles Olympics organizer Peter Ueberroth) after the the 1984 regular season. Following baseball, Kuhn returned to the law firm of Willkie Farr & Gallagher. He also was named President of the Kent Group, a business, sports and financial consulting firm, and became an adviser and board member for Domino's Pizza owner Tom Monaghan's Ave Maria Foundation. Kuhn has served as Chairman of the Catholic Advisory Board of the Ave Maria Mutual Funds since the inception of their first mutual fund, Ave Maria Catholic Values Fund, in May 2001.