Special Memory or Event? Want to have some fun? Advertise your business? Dedicate this page On January 10, 1957, commissioner Ford Frick allows actor/singer Bing Crosby, part of an eleven-man syndicate that made a successful bid to buy the Tigers, to keep his token stock in the Detroit club although he is part owner of…
1951 – Commissioner Happy Chandler loses his bid to remain in office. Chandler is voted down, 9-7, in a tally of owners. Chandler, who started his term as commissioner in 1945, will be succeeded by Ford Frick.
J. Edgar Hoover, longtime director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, declines the post of baseball commissioner. President Calvin Coolidge appointed him in 1924, and the nation’s top cop remained in the FBI until his death in 1972.
1950 – With a large portion going to the players’ pension fund, outgoing Commissioner Happy Chandler announces the Gillette Razor Company has purchased the television rights to the All-Star Game for six years for six million dollars.
Commissioner Happy Chandler and players’ representatives agree on the split of the TV and radio rights from the World Series.
On June 5, 1949, Commissioner Happy Chandler lifts the five year ban on major league players who had jumped to the Mexican League. One of the main reasons was the result of the players’ plan to sue for reinstatement on the grounds of an antitrust violation, a courtroom challenge the owners do not want to…
1948 – Commissioner Happy Chandler orders free agency for ten Detroit minor leaguers for the club’s cover-up of their contracts. One of the players who will make the major leagues is Bill Serena, with a six-year career.
1945 – Happy Chandler, who had continued to serve in the U.S. Senate after becoming commissioner, resigns his political office. He will move the commissioner’s quarters to Cincinnati.
On August 15, 1945, Commissioner Happy Chandler negotiates a contract to have Gillette become the sponsor of the World Series, replacing Ford Motot Company. The razor company pays a record $150,000 for its affiliation with the Fall Classic, surpassing the $100,000 price tag previously paid by Ford, which had been the World Series sponsor since…
1944 – Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, the first Major League Baseball Commissioner, dies of a heart attack at age 78 in Chicago. Landis had ruled over baseball since November 1920 in the wake of the Black Sox scandal, and wielded authority perhaps unparalleled in any other industry. Landis had entered the hospital on October 2nd. He will elected to the Hall of Fame on December 9th in a special ballot.