An Uninvited Guest Spills Baseball's Beans

The way the major league owners go about finding a new baseball commissioner you'd think they were hunting piranha bare-handed. It has gone on so long now that some of the "old favorites," such as American League President Joe Cronin, are going to bed lile firemen—with their shoes on and the motor running—just in case they hear their name called.

Last week they learned they would have to wait a bit longer. For the major league owners, in congress assembled, forged forthrightly to another decision—to procrastinate. They expanded committees, hauled out an organization plan set up secretly months ago so they would look as if they were doing something, now, and strenuously backpedaled on actually making a selection. It was, on the whole, another example of the Byzantine bumbling that afflicts the national game.

Meeting in Chicago, the owners took up the problem of how to avoid selecting a commissioner, but dynamically. ("What'll we tell the press?" was the question that aroused the fiercest discussion.) Their meditations took place at the beige, baroque Edgewater Beach Hotel, a lovely anachronism on the Far North lakefront. The last time the majors met at the Edgewater Beach, their entire conversation was overheard, and they threatened to sue the hotel and vowed never to return to Chicago.

But last week they were back in Chicago, back at the Edgewater Beach and back having their conversations overheard. This time the uninvited guest was George Vass, a mild-looking, bespectacled baseball writer for the Chicago Daily News. He arrived on Tuesday morning to look around the proposed meeting room. It was called the American Room and it was insulated from the corridor by a bank of elevators. Apparently this choice was made in an effort to frustrate enterprising reporters. But Vass made a fascinating discovery, even as his predecessor had seven years earlier: he could hear the conversations in the next room (the Illinois Room). Only the thin paneling of a door connecting the two rooms separated him from the head of the U-shaped table where the owners would gather. Stymied once by the presence of a bartender (the Illinois Room was then set up for the cocktail parties that were part of these sessions) and later by the presence of another meeting, Vass was finally able to get the Illinois Room to himself, settle down in an easy chair next to the door, light up his pipe and listen to the mutterings of the owners.

Among the things he learned:

?That the owners voted 19-1 on Wednesday to select a man from within baseball for commissioner.

?That the much-heralded five-man cabinet for baseball—to help the commissioner do his job—which was announced that day had actually been formed by the owners three months ago. The announcement was held up until this time—when they needed to look as if they were accomplishing something.

?That the owners labored arduously for a year to cut the list of potential candidates to seven, and then last week witlessly instructed their screening committee to accept any and all new names, thus leaving things exactly where they were a year ago.

?That the screening committee had absolutely no power other than to collect nominations and relay them to the owners. It had no power to contact the men named or to find out if they wanted or would take the job. So all of the public and private toying with names was like toying with dreams.

In the end, it was the typical major league meeting: much ado about nothing. To reach the basic list of seven, the owners eliminated a few names at the discussions on Tuesday afternoon. Among them were ex-Football Coach Bud Wilkinson, Peace Corps Director Sargent Shriver, Columnist Bob Considine, American Football League Commissioner Joe Foss. At the opening of the final meeting on Wednesday afternoon John Fetzer of Detroit—who, with John Galbreath of Pittsburgh, had formed the screening committee—pointed out that of the seven men left, "four are in baseball and three are in other fields." That their morning vote had effectively cut nonbaseball men out of contention hardly fazed the owners. They could always vote to reverse themselves.