Lee MacPhail, Oldest Hall of Famer, Dies at 95
Lee MacPhail, the former American League president who followed his father into baseball's Hall of Fame and whose son became a top executive for several major league teams, has died at 95.
He was the oldest Hall of Famer, and he died Thursday night at his home in Delray Beach, Fla., the Hall of Fame said Friday.
"There's not much I haven't done off the field other than commissioner," he said during a 1985 interview with The Associated Press when he retired after 4 1-2 decades in the sport.
In the second generation of one of baseball's most famous families — and part of the only father-son Hall of Fame pairing — MacPhail's most well-known moment in baseball came in 1983. He upheld Kansas City's protest in the Pine Tar Game against the New York Yankees, restoring a ninth-inning home run to Royals slugger George Brett — also a future Hall of Famer.
"Baseball history has lost a great figure in Lee MacPhail, whose significant impact on the game spanned five decades," Hall chairman Jane Forbes Clark said. "He will always be remembered in Cooperstown as a man of exemplary kindness and a man who always looked after the best interests of the game."
With MacPhail's death, Bobby Doerr at 94 becomes the oldest living Hall of Famer.
Lee MacPhail was the son of Larry MacPhail, a top executive with the Cincinnati Reds, Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Yankees.
Born Leland Stanford MacPhail Jr. in Nashville, Tenn., on Oct. 25, 1917, he was general manager at minor league Reading, went on to work for the Yankees in 1949 and spent a decade as farm director and player personnel director, with players he developed winning seven World Series titles.
He moved to the Baltimore Orioles as general manager in 1959 and six years later returned to New York as chief administrative assistant for new baseball Commissioner Spike Eckert. He returned to the Yankees as general manager from 1967-73, and left after George Steinbrenner bought the team to become AL president in 1974.
A member of management's labor negotiating team along with NL President Chub Feeney during the 1981 midseason strike, he also headed the AL when it added the designated hitter for the 1973 season and expanded to Seattle and Toronto for 1977.
After he stepped down as league president following the 1983 season, he served two years as president of the owners' Player Relations Committee, overseeing bargaining during a two-day strike in 1985. He was elected to the Hall as an executive in 1998, 20 years after his father.
In the famed Pine Tar case, MacPhail overruled plate umpire Tim McClelland and crew chief Joe Brinkman and restored a home run to Brett. After Yankees manager Billy Martin argued that Brett's bat had excessive pine tar when he hit a two-run, ninth-inning homer at Yankees Stadium on July 24, McClelland called Brett out, the final out in a 4-3 New York victory.
Brett stormed out of the dugout, eyes bulging, in one of baseball's most famous arguments. Four days later, MacPhail upheld a protest for the first time as league president, said the home run counted and ordered the game to continue from that point. When the game was completed Aug. 18, the Royals held on to win 5-4.
While the pine tar extended more than 18 inches past the handle, the limit set by baseball's rules, MacPhail said taking away the home run was improper.
|
11-09-2012, 12:35 PM
Similar Threads
Linear Mode
