The New Commissioner

The New Commissioner In a smoke-filled hotel room, traditional backdrop for major decisions in U.S. public life, the owners of baseball's 16 major league clubs met to consider baseball's big problem: Who would replace Happy Chandler as baseball's ruling commissioner? Since firing Chandler as commissioner last March, the club owners had ranged far afield in search of the right man for the job. Last week the owners found the right man right in their own backyard: Ford Christopher Frick, National League president.

The new commissioner owed his new job to one owner in particular, Warren Giles of the Cincinnati Reds. The field had narrowed down to Giles and Frick, but neither could get the necessary majority (twelve votes). After 17 ballots and nine hours of hassling and wrangling, the meeting was hopelessly deadlocked. Then Giles stalked in and declared dramatically: "My first interest in baseball is for the welfare of baseball itself. My second ... is the Cincinnati Reds, and my third is Warren Giles. In the best interests of baseball, I wish to withdraw my name." Frick was elected unanimously on the 19th ballot.

Unanimous Approval. The decision was approved just as unanimously by most of baseball. Frick, now 56 and greying, never realized his ambition of becoming a big league first baseman like his idol Cap Anson.* But even as an English professor (Colorado College), he never strayed far from the game. During World War I he worked with the War Department's rehabilitation division, then returned to a job as sportwriter for the Colorado Springs Telegraph. In 1919, after Arthur Brisbane saw some of his stories, Frick was called to New York.

By 1922, when he was assigned to cover the New York Yankees, hard-working Ford Frick kept his fellow sportwriters hopping to keep up with his early-to-bed & early-to-rise routine. He became a good friend and golfing partner of Commissioner Landis; in 1934 he was chosen head of the National League Service Bureau, which compiles the league's statistics. Within the year--a month before his 40th birthday -- Frick was the National League president.

"This Is America." The owners know that they have put no yes-man in the seven-year, $65,000-a-year job. Frick's biggest problem as National League president came in 1947 when he got wind of a projected players' strike against the admission of Negro Jackie Robinson into the league. Frick confronted the players with an ultimatum; "If you do this, you are through, and I don't care if it wrecks the league for ten years. You cannot do this because this is America."

Frick inherits some tough problems--falling attendance everywhere, radio and TV competition, West Coast howls for a third league, and, most serious, Congress' investigation of baseball's reserve clause (which prevents a player from selling his services to the highest bidder). Unlike his predecessor, Frick is too cagey to put his foot in his mouth by way of opening it. Baseball's problems can be ironed out, he feels, but "I don't want to go saying things now that will sound silly later. I am not a reformer. You have to make changes slowly and be sure to have a firm foundation for everything you do."

*The Lou Gehrig of the 19th Century. A first baseman for the Chicago Cubs (1876-96), Anson was a four-time batting champion, won five pennants as Chicago manager.

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