Remembering Bowie Kuhn

In the hours after first learning of the death of Bowie Kuhn, I’ve read and heard several accounts that described the former commissioner as a pompous stuffed shirt who often seemed stiff and uncomfortable. Well, that was never my experience with Kuhn. I talked to him several times during my years at the Hall of Fame, including an interview that I conducted in front of an appreciative crowd in the Hall’s Bullpen Theater. The former commissioner struck me as thoughtful and well spoken, even charming at times. He took an interest in my work at the Hall of Fame, which is not always the case with guest speakers who come to Cooperstown. I once gave him a ride from the Otesaga Hotel to the Hall of Fame; he was gracious and open during our conversation, and grateful for having saved him from a long walk.
After talking to Kuhn for awhile, it became obvious that he was both a fan of the game and a believer in old-school values. Those are two characteristics that rank highly with me. He was also knowledgeable about the Negro Leagues, having attended games at old Griffith Stadium in Washington. He had a real interest in preserving baseball history, which motivated him to donate his collection of papers from his days in baseball’s front office. He wasn’t just a suit who held the office of commissioner while waiting for something better to come around. This was a man who had a genuine love for the game, and took pride in trying to defend some of its values.

Still, as a commissioner, Kuhn was far from perfect. He made his share of mistakes, which the media of the seventies and eighties usually portrayed in earnest. With his reign as commissioner lasting from 1969 to 1984, Kuhn’s tenure coincided with one of the most tumultuous eras in the game’s history. His legacy was mixed, with some obvious failures, some more subtle successes, and a nearly endless supply of controversy and conflict.

The Bad
Bouton’s Book: The release of Jim Bouton’s tell-all diary, Ball Four, rocked a conservative baseball world in 1970. Commissioner Kuhn joined the fray by panning the book as “detrimental to baseball.” Kuhn’s criticism of Bouton only helped the book become a national bookseller, while making himself look out of touch with the realities of a baseball clubhouse. As with some of his decisions, Kuhn would have liked a do-over on this issue.

Hank Aaron’s Home Run Chase: With Aaron on the cusp of tying and breaking Babe Ruth’s home run record at the start of the 1974 season, Kuhn chose not to attend the Braves’ Opening Day game against the Reds—or any other Atlanta games prior to Aaron hitting his 715th. Kuhn felt that it was “beneath” the office of the commissioner to follow Aaron from ballpark to ballpark, contending that there might be logistical problems if Aaron failed to hit the tying and breaking home runs quickly. By choosing not to honor Aaron’s achievement with his presence, Kuhn raised the issue of race while making himself look arrogant. Kuhn’s decision would prove to be a public relations disaster.

Going Head To Head With Marvin Miller: Kuhn was usually hamstrung by the whims of the owners, many of whom wanted to break the union. Still, Kuhn has to take some of the responsibility for an inability to keep pace with the head of the Players Association. Whether it involved labor negotiations or anything attached to collective bargaining, this was Kuhn’s greatest shortcoming. The Commissioner underestimated Miller’s intelligence, perhaps because he considered him an outsider to the game. Kuhn also listened to bad advice from his lawyers, who were never quite as smart as the legal advisors employed by Miller.

The Good
Night Games in the World Series: With football gaining in popularity, Kuhn took a page from the NFL playbook, which had introduced Monday Night Football into the sports consciousness. Kuhn felt that baseball was denying much of its working fan base the opportunity to watch the World Series because of the insistence on playing games in the afternoon. So in 1971, Kuhn introduced an experiment: the staging of Game Four of the 1971 World Series during the primetime evening hours. The game, a tight-knit affair between the Orioles and the upstart Pirates, attracted record viewership on NBC, convincing Kuhn that more night games should be introduced in October. By featuring games from 8 PM until 11 PM Eastern time, during the height of television’s primetime hours, Kuhn increased postseason exposure by leaps and bounds. Critics of Kuhn might say that baseball went overboard by eventually moving all of its World Series games to nighttime starts, but that didn’t actually happen until 1985, one year after Kuhn was ousted as commissioner.

The Mike Andrews Incident: This was Kuhn at his finest. After Andrews committed two critical errors in Game Two of the 1973 World Series, A’s owner Charlie Finley forced him into signing an affidavit that he was hurt and then essentially fired his embattled second baseman, removing him from the active roster. Kuhn was not pleased. He looked into the matter quickly, determined that Andrews was not hurt, and ordered Finley to reinstate him. The Commissioner also fined Finley while publicly reprimanding him for his uncivil treatment of Andrews. In terms of swiftness, public relations, and justice, Kuhn won the day on all counts.

Baseball’s Battle with Cocaine: During the early 1980s, baseball was plagued by an illegal drug problem that rivaled recent concerns over the use of steroids and other performance enhancers. The widespread use of cocaine had infiltrated several major league clubhouses of that era, principally those in Pittsburgh and Kansas City. After the 1983 season, three members of the Royals (Willie Mays Aikens, Jerry Martin, and Willie Wilson) were arrested for attempting to purchase cocaine. After they received three-month prison sentences, Kuhn responded with a proper level of harshness, suspending each of the three for part of the 1984 season. Kuhn also imposed a season-long suspension against Dodgers reliever Steve Howe, whose drug problems were just beginning. With the Players Association and most major league owners afraid to act, Kuhn stepped in and played the role of enforcer, sending a clear message to all players that drug abuse would not be tolerated on his watch.

The In-Between
Baseball Vs. Curt Flood: Kuhn testified against Flood when the former Cardinals outfielder challenged the reserve clause in court. In Kuhn’s favor, he really had no choice but to take the owners’ side in the dispute. And as Kuhn often pointed out, baseball actually won its case against Flood, though the Supreme Court ruling opened the door to future challenges of the reserve clause. On the down side, Kuhn’s unsympathetic treatment of Flood galvanized militant players who felt that owners had taken advantage of them for years. Coming across as cold and uncaring, Kuhn also hurt the baseball establishment’s ranking with both the media and the game’s fan base.

Halting Finley's Firesale: After Charlie Finley sold off stars Vida Blue, Rollie Fingers, and Joe Rudi strictly for money prior to the 1976 trading deadline, Kuhn swooped in and voided the deals, claiming they "were not in the best interests of baseball." This was the right thing to do; Kuhn didn't want a competitive team to be able to sell off its best players strictly for financial gain, ala Connie Mack many years before. Unfortunately, Kuhn didn't make the proper follow-up move, which would have been to allow Finley to re-work the transactions so that he acquired actual player talent in return. As it turned out, Finley lost the players to free agency after the season, received nothing for them, and saw his franchise turn into a laughingstock.

So what’s the final ledger on Kuhn as a commissioner? Given his problems with Miller, he was not a success. Given his longevity and baseball’s economic growth during his tenure, he was not a failure, either. All in all, he made too many mistakes to be considered a great commissioner. But I think it’s safe to say that he was a very important and significant commissioner, a man who presided over the game at a time when it faced major upheaval because of labor issues, drug problems, expansion, the growth of television, and the presence of strong personalities in both ownership and the union. Rather than skirt these issues, he usually faced them, sometimes for good and other times for bad. In writing a complete history of baseball, I think that one would have to devote at least one chapter to the reign of Bowie Kuhn.