Editing Commissioner of Baseball (section)

=== Kenesaw Mountain Landis (1920–1944) ===
[[File:Landis portrait-restored.png|thumb|right|upright|[[Kenesaw Mountain Landis]]]]
Having agreed to appoint only non-baseball men to the National Commission, the owners tapped federal judge [[Kenesaw Mountain Landis]], an ardent baseball fan, to serve as the reformed commission's chairman.<ref name="blal">{{cite web|url=https://baseballbiography.com/american-league|title=MLB American League|publisher=Baseball Biography|access-date=2007-12-26}}</ref> Landis responded by declaring that he would only accept an appointment as sole commissioner, with nearly unlimited authority to act in the "best interests of baseball" – in essence, serving as an arbitrator whose decisions could not be appealed.  Finally, Landis insisted on a lifetime contract. The owners, still reeling from the perception that the sport was crooked, readily agreed.

==== Gambling ====
Landis's first significant act was to deal with the [[Black Sox scandal]]. Following a trial, the eight players suspected of involvement in the fix were acquitted. Nevertheless, immediately following the players' acquittal, Landis [[List of people banned from Major League Baseball|banned them all from baseball]] for life. He famously declared, "Regardless of the verdict of juries, no player who throws a ballgame, no player that undertakes or promises to throw a ballgame, no player that sits in conference with a bunch of crooked players and gamblers where the ways and means of throwing a game are discussed and does not promptly tell his club about it, will ever play professional baseball."<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.sportshistorytoday.com/black-sox-banned-baseball-august-3-1921/ |title=Archived copy |access-date=2015-05-24 |archive-date=2015-05-25 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150525014723/http://www.sportshistorytoday.com/black-sox-banned-baseball-august-3-1921/ |url-status=dead }}</ref> Landis explained that even though the players had all been acquitted in court, there was no dispute that they had broken the rules of baseball.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Andrews |first1=Evan |title=What Was the 1919 'Black Sox' Baseball Scandal? |url=https://www.history.com/news/black-sox-baseball-scandal-1919-world-series-chicago |website=history.com |date=24 August 2023 |publisher=A&E Television Networks, LLC. |access-date=3 December 2023}}</ref> Therefore, he maintained that none of them could be allowed back in the game if its image was to be restored with the public.{{citation needed|date=August 2019}} Among those banned were [[Buck Weaver]] and superstar [[Shoeless Joe Jackson]], who have generally been viewed to be far less culpable compared to the other six accused. Landis' position was that he had no doubt that Weaver and Jackson at the very least knew about the fix, and failed to report it, and that this alone was grounds for permanent banishment.

Over the years, he dealt harshly with others proven to have thrown individual games, consorted with gamblers, or engaged in actions that he felt tarnished the image of the game. Among the others he banned were [[New York Giants (NL)|New York Giants]] players [[Phil Douglas (baseball)|Phil Douglas]] and [[Jimmy O'Connell (baseball)|Jimmy O'Connell]], [[Philadelphia Phillies]] pitcher [[Gene Paulette]], Giants coach [[Cozy Dolan (1910s outfielder)|Cozy Dolan]], and (in 1943) Phillies owner [[William D. Cox]]. He also formalized the unofficial banishments of [[Hal Chase]] and [[Heinie Zimmerman]]. In 1921, he banned Giants center fielder [[Benny Kauff]] even though he had been acquitted of involvement in a car theft ring. Nonetheless, Landis was convinced Kauff was guilty and argued that players of "undesirable reputation and character" had no place in baseball.

==== An independent commissioner's office ====
The owners had initially assumed that Landis would deal with the Black Sox Scandal and then settle into a comfortable retirement as the titular head of baseball. Instead, Landis ruled baseball with an iron hand for the next 25 years. He established a fiercely independent commissioner's office that would go on to often make both players and owners miserable with decisions that he argued were in the best interests of the game. He worked to clean up the [[hooliganism]] that was tarnishing the reputation of players in the 1920s. Without a union to represent them, the players had no meaningful recourse to challenge Landis' virtually unchecked authority. On the other hand, Landis inserted his office into negotiations with players, where he deemed appropriate, to put an end to a few of the more egregious labor practices that had contributed to the players' discontent. He also personally approved broadcasters for the World Series.

Landis's only significant rival in the early years was longtime American League founder and president [[Ban Johnson]], who had been reckoned as the most powerful man in the game before Landis's arrival. Johnson was as strong-willed as Landis, and a clash between the two was inevitable. It happened in the [[1924 World Series]]. When several Giants were implicated in a plan to bribe players on the moribund Phillies late in the season, Johnson demanded that the Series be canceled, and loudly criticized Landis's handling of the affair, to which Landis responded by threatening to resign. The American League owners promised to throw Johnson out of office if he stepped out of line again. [[1926 in baseball|Two years later]], when Johnson criticized Landis's decision to give [[Ty Cobb]] and [[Tris Speaker]] an amnesty after it surfaced they had bet on a fixed game in 1919, Landis told the American League owners to choose between him and Johnson.  The owners promptly sent Johnson on a sabbatical from which he never really returned.

==== The baseball color line ====
Landis perpetuated the [[baseball color line|color line]] and prolonged the segregation of organized baseball. His successor, [[Happy Chandler]], said, "For twenty-four years Judge Landis wouldn't let a black man play. I had his records, and I read them, and for twenty-four years Landis consistently blocked any attempts to put blacks and whites together on a big league field."<ref>[http://baseballreader.tripod.com/id33.htm Bums: An Oral History of the Brooklyn Dodgers] by Peter Golenbock</ref> [[Bill Veeck]] claimed Landis prevented him from purchasing the Phillies when Landis learned of Veeck's plan to integrate the team. The signing of the first black ballplayer in the modern era, [[Jackie Robinson]], came less than a year after Landis's death on Chandler's watch and was engineered by one of Landis's old nemeses, [[Branch Rickey]]. Eleven weeks after Robinson's debut with the [[Brooklyn Dodgers]], Veeck became the first American League owner to break the color line.

==== Curbing the growth of minor league farm systems ====
Landis tried to curb the growth of [[Minor League Baseball|minor league]] farm systems by innovators such as Rickey, in the name of protecting the lower levels of professional ball. Landis argued that because a parent club could unilaterally call up players from teams that were involved in pennant races, the organization was unfairly interfering with the minor competitions. His position was that the championship of each minor league was of no less importance than the championships of the major leagues and that minor league fans and supporters had the right to see their teams competing as best they could. On the other hand, the decisive factor resulting in the eventual entrenchment of the modern farm system was not Landis' demise but rather the growing presence of MLB on television, which caused attendances in the minor leagues to collapse and left these clubs in a precarious financial position that would have made Landis' position untenable in any case.

Moreover, Landis prevented the formation of a powerful third major league when he stopped [[Pants Rowland]] from upgrading the [[Pacific Coast League]] in the 1940s. Furthermore, (and despite the fact that, insofar as he was accountable at all, it was strictly to major league owners) Landis did not hesitate to aggressively use the powers of his office to force the minor leagues and their clubs to submit to his authority in a number of ways. Most notably, he uncompromisingly held to a policy that dictated any minor league player who knowingly played with or against a player banned by Major League Baseball would himself be banned from MLB for life. This threat effectively compelled every minor league to rigidly honor and enforce suspensions handed down by Landis in their competitions as well. Nevertheless, some players banned by Landis are believed to have continued playing under assumed identities at the minor league or semi-professional level.

One of the schemes Landis vigorously fought was the effort by major-league teams to "cover up" players they were hiding in their farm systems. The term, not used in formal communications by the league or team officials, referred to players clandestinely signed by a major-league team to a minor-league contract. Occasionally one team would serendipitously find such a player in the off-season draft, as in this occasion recorded in the book ''Dodger Daze and Knights'':

<blockquote>
All the clubowners and managers, and Commissioner Landis, were assembled to conduct the draft. One team representative said he "claim[s] Player [[Paul Richards (baseball)|[Paul] Richards]] of Brooklyn".

"You can't do that!" barked a surprised [[Wilbert Robinson]], manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers.

"Why not?" asked Landis.

"Because Brooklyn has him covered up", sputtered Robbie.

Most of the others broke down laughing. Even Landis smirked.
</blockquote>

==== Legacy and honors ====
Whether his decisions were praised or criticized, he was satisfied with being respected and feared. Dubbed "the baseball tyrant" by journalists of the day, his rule was absolute. In the context of ensuring the integrity of the game itself, baseball historians generally regard him as the right man at the right time when appointed, but also as a man who perhaps held office too long.

He was elected to the [[Baseball Hall of Fame]] in [[Baseball Hall of Fame balloting, 1944|1944]], in a special election held one month after his death, and the [[MLB Most Valuable Player Award|Most Valuable Player Award]] in each league was officially known as the Kenesaw Mountain Landis Award in his honor until 2020, following complaints from past MVP winners about Landis's role in stonewalling racial integration.<ref>{{cite web |url= https://twitter.com/officialbbwaa/status/1312119453778243584 |title=Official BBWAA |website=Twitter.com |access-date=2020-10-28 }}</ref>