Ford Frick

Many baseball observers have viewed Ford Frick as an ineffective commissioner of Major League Baseball, largely manipulated by the league’s owners, and more of an observer than a changemaker during his tenure from 1951 to 1965. Dave Bohmer challenges this perception, presenting Frick as a key figure in some of the massive changes baseball underwent during his thirty-one years as an executive of the Major Leagues, first as National League president for seventeen years and then as commissioner for fourteen. Frick is rarely credited with any Major League accomplishments besides his role in founding the Baseball Hall of Fame, but Bohmer argues that Frick was, in fact, one of baseball history’s most effective executives.

While National League president, Frick helped save four clubs from bankruptcy, enabling each to win a pennant. He was instrumental in assisting the sport’s survival during the Great Depression and World War II and closely involved in integrating the game. On being named commissioner in 1951, he had a leading role in facilitating the transfer of seven franchises, ensuring baseball was now played in all sections of the country. In a similar vein, he assisted in preparing Major League Baseball for expansion. During his tenure, he helped to stabilize the Minor Leagues, led the way in establishing the player draft that is still used today, and, through numerous congressional hearings, protected baseball’s antitrust exemption. He left his mark in other areas as well, such as protecting the player pension plan. This revisionist biography, with many untold stories of mid-twentieth-century baseball, casts new light on Frick’s sizable contributions to the game and his lasting legacy.