The Chris Moeller Archives

Bowie Kuhn's legacy

Former baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn died last week. Not surprisingly, the obituaries and assessments of his reign, are being written from the club owners' perspective-- the baseball press still equating the 30 team ownerships as same thing as the league, and the collection of its players as something separate.

Almost universally, Kuhn, who served from 1969 until 1984, is being judged to have had more impact than any league commish other than its first, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, and perhaps its current, Bud Selig, but it's very inexact to even call the commissioner the league boss, and too easy to overstate his importance. The baseball commissioner, you see, is an employee of the club owners, just like the players.

What Kuhn may have-- or didn't-- accomplish had more to do with the men-- and a small number of women-- at whose pleasure he served, and it's not coincidental that Kuhn's professional career prior to landing the job as the sport's commissioner included two decades as general counsel to the Major League clubs.

Kuhn presided over the introduction of the designated hitter in 1973. To this day, though I still feel as if I must immediately shower and disinfect after watching a game in which the pitchers did not bat for themselves, credit (or blame) for the DH has to rest with former Oakland Athletics' owner Charlie O. Finley, who introduced the concept, and the other American League club owners, who went along with the carnival sideshow idea.

Credit is being given to Kuhn for increasing baseball's television exposure, for booming revenue, and for prolonged league parity during his reign, but neither he nor his bosses deserve praise for any of these developments. Baseball owners, and their hand-picked appointees, had long shunned television, just as they feared radio prior to that advancement, believing foolishly that the public wouldn't attend games they could watch or listen to for free from their homes. It was National Football League commissioner Pete Rozelle who was revolutionizing sports on television, even as Kuhn was getting his feet wet on the job. Even into the 1990s, the baseball commissioner's office and the club owners, claiming territorial infringements, were fighting efforts by Ted Turner and the Tribune Company to send their respective teams' local broadcasts across the nation upon cable TV "superstations."

It's the Baseball Players Assocation and their chief, Marvin Miller, who deserve credit for-- if not booming revenue (a bigger pie to share?)-- than at least for soaring franchise values. It was free agency and the development of a fair market for players as company assets that caused resale value of clubs to exponentially increase, and contrary to a still-stubborn myth, has also led to greater on-field parity between the teams. The sport's richest club, the New York Yankees, won 20 Championships in the 40 seasons between 1923 and 1962, but only six in the 45 years since, as the seeds of Miller's union have flowered. Even though a lack of economic parity has allowed George Steinbrenner's Yankees to purchase the best available veteran players season after season, the flipside of free agency has meant that the New York and other wealthy clubs can no longer boast not only the league's best player at a given position, but also its second best stuck behind him on the bench.

Which leads us to Kuhn's ultimate legacy-- that, strangely, of a mail recipient. His tenure will be remembered as the one during which the sport's players, against his tireless efforts, finally became full partners in the financial profit of the game. Their cause has been most heroically personified by a ballplayer named Curt Flood, who challenged baseball's anti-trust exemption and its reserve clause that bound a player to one team for life. He and his attorneys wrote one of the most famous letters in American history to Kuhn in 1969, to be met only with refusal for Flood's request:


December 24th, 1969

Mr. Bowie K. Kuhn
Commissioner of Baseball
680 Fifth Avenue
New York, New York 10019

Dear Mr. Kuhn:

After twelve years in the Major Leagues, I do not feel that I am a piece of property to be bought and sold irrespective of my wishes. I believe that any system which produces that result violates my basic rights as a citizen and is inconsistent with the laws of the United States and of the several states.

It is my desire to play baseball in 1970, and I am capable of playing. I have received a contract offer from the Philadelphia club, but I believe I have the right to consider offers from other clubs before making any decisions. I, therefore, request that you make known to all the Major League Clubs my feelings in this matter, and advise them of my availability for the 1970 season.

Sincerely yours,
(Signature)
Curt Flood

CF/J
CC- Mr. Marvin Miller
- Mr. John Quinn

posted by CM @ 6:25 PM