baseball’s commissioners from
landis to selig by larry moffi
University of Nebraska Press
Lincoln and London
The Conscience of the Game
Part of chapter 2 originally appeared as “The
Winter Meetings, the King of Baseball, and
the Conscience of the Game,” in Baseball
and American Culture: Across the Diamond,
ed. Edward J. Rielly, 249–58 (New York: The
Haworth Press).
Part of chapter 6 originally appeared as
“Baseball’s Other Peculiar Institution,” The
Independent Scholar 38, no. 1 (2004): 7–8.
Published by the National Coalition of
Independent Scholars, Berkeley, California.
© 2006 by Larry Moffi All rights reserved.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Moffi , Larry.
The conscience of the game: baseball’s
commissioners from Landis to Selig / Larry
Moffi .
p. cm.
isbn-13: 978-0-8032-8322-0 (pbk.: alk. paper)
isbn-10: 0-8032-8322-9 (pbk.: alk. paper)
1. Major League Baseball (Organization). Offi ce
of the Commissioner—History. 2. Baseball

commissioners—United States—History.
3. Baseball—United States—Management.
4. Baseball—United States—History. I. Title.
gv875.a1m64 2006 796.357Ј64068—dc22
2006010479
Set in Scala by Bob Reitz.
Designed by A. Shahan.
to new generations: Ethan Joseph Pomainville and Jamie Parr

I profess in the sincerity of my heart that I have not the least
personal interest in endeavoring to promote this necessary work,
having no other motive than the public good of my country . . .
> Jonathan Swift, “A Modest Proposal,” 1729

Contents
Acknowledgments xi
A Note to the Reader xiii
Prologue: The Education of a Virtual Commissioner 1
1. Baseball’s Peculiar Institution, part 1: December 6, 2001 13
2. The Best Interests of the Game 26
3. Baseball’s Peculiar Institution, part 2: February 13, 2002 83
4. Separation of Church and State? 97
5. The Absence of Conscience: June 18, 2002 149
6. Baseball’s Other Peculiar Institution 161
7. Pumping Credibility: The Steroid Hearings of 2005 190
8. One Fan’s Modest Proposal 199
A Chronology of the Offi ce of the Commissioner
of Baseball, 1920–2006 209

Acknowledgments

I am most grateful to the following people who generously agreed
to personal interviews: Commissioner of Baseball Bud Selig and
former commissioners Bowie Kuhn, Peter Ueberroth, and Fay
Vincent; as well as Tal Smith, Roland Hemond, Cal McLish, Cliff
Kachline, Bob Smith, Sal Artiaga, Bob Lurie, David Osinsky, Milt
Bolling, Dan Wilson, Mike Moore, Stan Brand, the late Mickey
Owen, Marty Marion, William Marshall, and Senator Mike Dew-
ine.
In addition, I owe a debt of thanks to the Library of Congress and
to the University of Kentucky for making available the papers and/
or audiotapes of Branch Rickey and A. B. “Happy” Chandler, re-
spectively. Also I am indebted to the authors of the following books
and to the various newspapers I consulted, some more frequently
than others: Ford Frick’s Games, Asterisks, and People; Happy Chan-
dler’s Heroes, Plain Folks, and Skunks; David Pietrusza’s Judge and
Jury; J. G. Taylor Spink’s Judge Landis and Twenty-Five Years of Base-
ball; Fay Vincent’s The Last Commissioner; Bowie Kuhn’s Hardball;
Peter Ueberroth’s Made in America; William Marshall’s Baseball’s
Pivotal Era, 1945–1951; Jerome Holtzman’s The Commissioners; El-
iot Asinov’s Eight Men Out; Robert Creamer’s Stengel; John He-
lyar’s Lords of the Realm; Connie Mack’s My 66 Years in the Big
Leagues; Bill Veeck’s Veeck as in Wreck; Bob Costas’s Fair Ball; Joe
Morgan’s Long Balls, No Strikes; William Cohen Finkelman’s Base-
ball and the American Legal Mind; Robert F. Burk’s Much More than
a Game; William B. Mead’s The Explosive Sixties and Baseball Goes
to War; Andrew Zimbalist’s Baseball and Billions; Marvin Miller’s
A Whole Different Ball Game; G. Edward White’s Creating the Na-
tional Pastime; Red Barber’s 1947, The Year All Hell Broke Loose and
Rhubarb in the Catbird Seat; Gerald Eskenazi’s The Lip, A Biography
of Leo Durocher; Jules Tygiel’s Baseball’s Great Experiment; Harold

xi
Parrott’s The Lords of Baseball; Ira Berkow’s Red, The Life & Times of
a Great American Writer
—
A Biography of Red Smith; Doug Pappas
and his extensive “Business of Baseball” essays from baseballpro-
spectus.com; and the Chicago Tribune, New York Herald, New York
Times, Sporting News, Chicago Defender, Washington Post, Atlanta
Journal and Constitution, Pittsburgh Courier, and Sports Illustrated.
I am deeply indebted to many good people for their encourage-
ment and support during my research and writing: to Paul Zim-
mer for putting the bug in my brain; to Richard Hart Moffi , Brandi
Adams, and Mark Zollo, for their research assistance; and to Rick
Zollo for remaining in my corner lo these many months. I am also
grateful for the advice and assistance of Rich Levin, Phil Hoch-
berg, Marty Appel, Eric Smith, Gary Gillette, Jonathan Kronstadt,
Shep Ranbom, and Bob Hinck.
Finally, to my wife Jacquelyn for your uncommon support, your
good common sense, and your great sense of humor: You’re the
best!
xii acknowledgments
A Note to the Reader
This book covers the scope of the offi ce of the commissioner of
baseball, from 1920 to the present, though not chronologically.
Nor is it exhaustive in covering the administrations of the nine
commissioners to date. That was never my intent. It is a book
about the offi ce itself and one fan’s relationship to that offi ce. Spe-
cifi cally, it is one fan’s journey across the often unforgiving and
frequently mysterious terrain known as “the best interests of the
game.” It enters gullies and caves and nooks and crannies I never

knew existed. Though it is informed by history
—
of the game and
of the offi ce and of the nine men who served the game of baseball
in that offi ce
—
it is defi nitively not a history. I trust the book itself
to answer not so much how and why the offi ce has evolved over the
years but where we go from here with the offi ce of the commis-
sioner of baseball, a position I hold to be essential to the health of
the game of baseball.
Except where indicated, directly or in context, quotations are
from personal interviews, the majority of which were conducted
from 2002 to 2005. Throughout the book I make clear distinction
between major league baseball and Major League Baseball, and
that difference is greater than typographical, a fact that will soon
become clear if it isn’t already.
Despite all odds, I consider this an optimistic book.
xiii

The Conscience of the Game