How I Jumped Form Clean Politics Into Dirty Baseball

Under normal circumstances a politician who engages in a contest he cannot win is no politician and deserves what fate leaves him. In the spring of 1945 I accepted the high commissionership of major league baseball. Two factors contributed to this lapse of sanity: 1) I thought of the position as nonpolitical and myself as a qualified candidate, more qualified, in fact, than the man who preceded me (later I was to include, especially, those who succeeded me); and 2) it paid $50,000 a year to start. I was making $10,000 as a United States Senator from Kentucky and losing the battle then common to Senators who tried to maintain separate residences in Washington and their home state.

I am by nature an optimistic fellow. Like Satchel Paige, who is supposed to have said, "Don't look back, something might be gaining on you," I have generally looked ahead and have gladly accepted challenges. Perhaps I should have been looking behind me. After just over six years—years, I think it not immodest to say, that will be regarded by historians as the best baseball ever had—a minority of owners succeeded in cellar-digging me out of the job. Seven of the 16 blocked my reinstatement. I thanked them for their trouble and went back to Kentucky, where politicking is called "politics" and not "major league baseball."

Among those who took credit for this heroic act was Del Webb, whose policies made the Yankees what they are today: a second-rate team. My office at the time was investigating what later turned out to be unfounded rumors concerning Webb and Las Vegas gambling interests. An informer, a longtime beneficiary of my patronage who hoped to gain a higher place for himself in baseball, tipped Webb off. He gained nothing. He is dead now and I won't embarrass his family by naming him. It is reasonable to conclude, however, that Webb was furious that he had been investigated, and he got me before I got him. Siding with Webb were Lou Perini of the Braves, Dan Topping, also of the Yankees, Fred Saigh of the Cardinals and a few others on whom I had not spared the rod.

To give you an idea, at least partially, of what dubious contributors owners have been to the good name of the game, here is a conversation I recall having had with Alva Bradley, who owned the Cleveland club when I took office. I saw Bradley for the first time at a meeting in Washington. He said, "We'll all cheat if we have to. This fellow cheats, I cheat too. In fact, we all cheat."

I said, "Well, Mr. Bradley, I wish I'd known that before I signed on for this voyage because I didn't leave the United States Senate to preside over a bunch of thieves. If I catch you, be prepared to belly up, because I won't be easy." I was advised after that that I should learn to "wink" at rule breakers. I said, "There are 16 teams in this game. If I wink at one, I'll have to wink at 15 others. That's not a wink, that's a twitch."

Bradley was right, of course. Many of the owners did cheat—not the true benefactors of the game, the great grassroots baseball men like Connie Mack or Clark Griffith, but the corporate raiders, Webb, Perini, etc. When they were face to face with exposure, they never once failed to show great indignation.

How did they cheat? In a lot of ways. Chances are you haven't heard them lately because it is much more expedient just now to chastise prodigal players than prodigal owners. Players are in no position to bite the hand that flogs them. I am not impressed that poor deluded Denny McLain got busted. I would have been more impressed had the signs of his confused loyalties been read months before—I am led to believe they were clear for all to see—and his bad conduct curtailed so that severe punishment would not have been necessary.

I am a strong believer in avoiding the appearance of evil, and I have made it a practice in my public life to nip it whenever I could. I got a report during the time I was commissioner that an announcer was betting on ball games. He was sending a runner from his broadcasting booth in the press box to a bookmaker stationed in a saloon across the street. When I got wind of it, I moved immediately to stop him. I was one of the man's great admirers, but gambling was something he couldn't let alone.

I sent for the gentleman and told him what I had heard. I said, "Do you like your job broadcasting baseball games?" He said, "Yes, sir." I said, "You can't broadcast them unless you can see them, can you?" He said, "No sir." I said, "If you continue on the route you've taken I will deny you entrance to every ball park in the league." He got the message and remembered it, at least while I was commissioner.

But I was about to give you a short course in the ways of cheating owners. A favorite when I was in office was to misuse the option privilege. The option rule is a sound one for one good reason: it prevents a club heavy with talent (as the Yankees used to be) from continually optioning worthy players to minor leagues and thereby denying them a fair crack at the big leagues. A club is entitled to option a player three times and no more. I soon learned if I turned my head, some of the owners would option players more times than were permitted by the rules.