Kenesaw Mountain Landis and the Invention of the Commissioner

Before 1920, professional baseball was governed by a three-man National Commission consisting of the presidents of the American and National Leagues and a third member chosen by the two. The system was designed for compromise. It produced gridlock. By the time the Black Sox scandal broke in September 1920, the commission had been effectively deadlocked for months, the two league presidents were feuding publicly, and the owners had lost control of their own sport.

They needed a strongman. They found a federal judge.

Kenesaw Mountain Landis was born in 1866 in Millville, Ohio, named after the Civil War battle where his father, a Union Army surgeon, had been severely wounded in the leg. (His parents misspelled the mountain's name on the birth certificate. The extra "n" in Kennesaw was never corrected.) He became a federal judge in 1905, appointed by Theodore Roosevelt, and built a reputation for flamboyant courtroom theatrics and hostility toward large corporations.

Baseball's owners had already noticed him. In 1915, when the Federal League sued the American and National Leagues for antitrust violations, the case landed in Landis's courtroom. Landis, a devoted Cubs fan who understood that ruling against the leagues could destroy professional baseball, stalled his decision for nearly a year until the Federal League collapsed and the suit was withdrawn. The owners remembered the favor.

On November 12, 1920, they offered him the job. Landis accepted on one condition. Absolute authority. Not shared authority. Not advisory authority. The power to act "in the best interests of baseball," with no appeal and no oversight. The owners, desperate to restore public confidence after the Black Sox scandal, agreed. National League president John Heydler had said, "We want a man as chairman who will rule with an iron hand." They got one.

Landis's first major act was banning the eight Black Sox players for life, despite their acquittal at trial. "Regardless of the verdict of juries," he declared, "no player that sits in a conference with a bunch of crooked players and gamblers where the ways and means of throwing games are discussed, and does not promptly tell his club about it, will ever again play professional baseball." The ban was permanent. Landis refused every reinstatement petition for the rest of his life.

Over the next 24 years, Landis banned, suspended, or disciplined dozens of players and officials connected to gambling. He suspended Babe Ruth and Bob Meusel through May 20 of the 1922 season for unauthorized barnstorming. He freed minor league players he believed were being hidden by major league teams. He fought Branch Rickey's farm system, considering it a form of player exploitation. He ruled the game as an autocrat.

His most consequential failure was racial. Throughout his entire tenure, baseball remained segregated. Landis claimed there was no rule barring african american players, stating, "Negroes are not barred from organized baseball by the commissioner. There is no rule in organized baseball prohibiting their participation and never has been to my knowledge." This was technically true and functionally meaningless. The "gentlemen's agreement" among owners to exclude african american players was enforced by silence, and Landis did nothing to break that silence. He stopped exhibition games between major league and Negro League teams after the african american teams won too often. He silenced managers who spoke publicly about wanting to sign african american players. When the Brooklyn Dodgers' Leo Durocher was quoted in 1942 saying he would sign african american players if allowed, Durocher denied making the statement when summoned before Landis.

Jackie Robinson did not break the color line until October 1945, eleven months after Landis's death. The timing was not coincidental. Branch Rickey, who signed Robinson, had been waiting.

Landis died on November 25, 1944, at the age of 78, eight days after being elected to a new seven-year term. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame by special vote shortly afterward. In 2020, his name was removed from the MVP award plaques after objections from former winners including Barry Larkin and Terry Pendleton.

The office he created has endured. Every commissioner since Landis has operated under the "best interests of baseball" clause he demanded. But none has wielded the same power. As sportswriter Tom Meany wrote shortly before Landis's death, if the commissioner were ever replaced, the new man would "merely be an employee. And who ever heard of any employee finding against his bosses?" That is exactly what happened.