The man who was baseball commissioner during its growth into a multi-billion dollar industry has passed at the age of 80.
He was the man who was in charge when I was getting interested in the sport, and I have to admit that I was a big fan of the guy. What I liked best was his stepping in to overrule Charlie O. Finley's fire sale of his championship teams best players such as Joe Rudi, Rollie Fingers and Vida Blue to other teams. I loved that because I really hated the A's back then, the swagger they gave off was offputting to an impressionable young mind such as myself
He was the man in charge of baseball for the critical cases of Curt Flood and Andy Messersmith, cases that helped pave the way for the increased freedom to move from one team to another, and for bigger salaries in general for all ballplayers.
I'd forgotten about his banning of Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays for their associations with a casino (God knows what he would've done with Pete Rose back then) until I read part of his obituary on MLB.com, and for ordering the Atlanta Braves to play Hank Aaron in their opening series of the 1974 season at Cincinnatiin his quest to top Babe Ruth's all-time home run record of 714, which was brought up on the ESPN site.
Thank you for the great work you did Bowie, for the good of the game in your estimation, God knows we could use a strong leader like you today.
MLB.COM
ESPN
No comments:
Post a Comment