Morgan Bulkeley

Morgan Gardner Bulkeley served as the first president of the National League in 1876 and held the position for a single season. His election to the Hall of Fame in 1937 reflected his ceremonial role in baseball's founding more than any sustained contribution to the sport. He was an insurance executive, a governor, and a U.S. Senator whose baseball career amounted to one year of administrative work.

Hartford and the National League

Bulkeley was born in East Haddam, Connecticut, in 1837. He served in the Union Army during the Civil War, then entered business in Hartford, eventually becoming president of the Aetna Life Insurance Company in 1879. He held that position for more than four decades.

His connection to baseball came through the Hartford Dark Blues. He served as the club's president when William Hulbert organized the National League in 1876. Hulbert had done the actual work of building the league and recruiting teams. A drawing was held to determine the first president, and Bulkeley's name emerged first. The arrangement suited Hulbert, who preferred to operate behind the scenes during the league's inaugural year. Bulkeley, a prominent businessman with a public reputation, fit the role. He presided over the league's inaugural season and stepped aside after one year, never returning to baseball administration. Hulbert succeeded him and ran the league until his death in 1882.

Political Career

Bulkeley's public life extended well beyond baseball. He served as mayor of Hartford from 1880 to 1888 and as governor of Connecticut from 1889 to 1893. His first election in 1888 went to the Republican-controlled legislature after no candidate won an absolute majority. After the 1890 election, the two legislative chambers deadlocked on certifying a successor, and Bulkeley held over in office until 1893 in what became known as the "Crowbar Governor" episode. He served one term in the U.S. Senate from 1905 to 1911.

He was a fixture of Connecticut Republican politics for three decades, and his business and political standing gave him a level of respectability that baseball's early organizers valued. His role in the sport was brief and largely symbolic, but the Centennial Commission included him among its 1937 selections alongside Ban Johnson, Connie Mack, John McGraw, and George Wright.

A Ceremonial Induction

Bulkeley died on November 6, 1922, in Hartford, at age 84. The Centennial Commission elected him to the Hall of Fame fifteen years after his death. His plaque in Cooperstown describes him as the first president of the National League. The title is accurate. Whether a single year of ceremonial leadership over a league that someone else built warranted enshrinement has been debated since 1937.