November 23, 1943: Baseball Bans an Owner

November 23, 1943: Kenesaw Mountain Landis, the Commissioner of Baseball, does something shocking: He bans a team owner for life.

William Drought Cox was born on November 8, 1909 in Manhattan. A Yale University graduate who built a fortune as a lumber broker, in 1941 he was President of the 3rd American Football League, and the owner of its New York Americans. Under the rules of that league, that was legal. But the manpower drain of World War II killed the league.

In 1943, he bought the bankrupt Philadelphia Phillies. At age 33, he was the youngest owner in Major League Baseball. He was a hands-on owner, who invested in the team's farm system, brought in a Yale classmate who was a conditioning coach, and, by July 25, they were 39-50, having won just 3 fewer games than they had won all through 1942. And their per-game attendance had doubled.

But manager Bucky Harris, once the "Boy Wonder" manager of the 1924 World Champion Washington Senators, chafed against his methods. On July 27, Cox fired Harris. On July 28, Harris dropped a bomb: He revealed that Cox had placed bets on the Phillies. To win. That detail didn't matter. Cox freely admitted it. That didn't matter, either. On November 23, having completed his investigation, Commissioner Landis banned Cox for life -- the only owner ever to receive this penalty and have it stand.

The Phillies went 25-40 the rest of the way, under manager Fred Fitzsimmons, a former All-Star pitcher, finishing 64-90, in 7th place, 41 games out of 1st.

Shortly after Cox was banned, the Phillies were taken over by the National League, and sold to Bob Carpenter, who owned them for the next 38 years. He continued the Cox innovations, but not the Cox gambling. As a member of the wealthy Carpenter and du Pont families, he didn't need the money.

The Phillies won the Pennant in 1950, but never came close again, and fell apart by the end of the decade. In 1972, Carpenter turned the operation of the Phillies over to his son Ruly, who thus followed in Cox' footsteps as the youngest operator of an MLB team and as a rebuilder, reaching the Playoffs by 1976, and winning the World Series in 1980.

Cox lived long enough to see these events. In 1960, he created the International Soccer League. In 1967, he founded the National Professional Soccer League. The next year, it was merged with another league to become the North American Soccer League. Cox then left sports for other business interests, and lived until March 28, 1989.

Since Cox, only 2 men have been permanently banned from baseball: George Steinbrenner, who applied for reinstatement after 2 years, and got it; and Pete Rose, who applied for reinstatement and has never had his appeal heard. 

UPDATE: Rose died in 2024, and was reinstated in 2025. That same year, I learned something about Cox that I wish I hadn't. In his book FDR, Dewey, and the Election of 1944, David M. Jordan, who has also written books about the Phillies, wrote that Cox had written a letter to Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York, congratulating him on receiving the Republican nomination for President. Cox told him, "Your election in November is the only means of correcting the fabulous mistakes of the past twelve years."

Jordan's narrative didn't say what Cox thought those "fabulous mistakes" were, or even if Cox himself listed any of them. And, to be fair, Jordan's book did treat both campaigns fairly, pointing out both the strengths and the foibles of both candidates, and of the people around them.

But it's easy to see the appeal of Dewey to a man like Cox. Cox was a New Yorker by birth, Dewey one by adoption. (He grew up on a farm in Michigan.) They had both achieved big things at an early age. (Cox was 7 years younger.) And Cox was a man who got rich in spite of the Great Depression, so he felt no debt to the incumbent Democratic President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and wanted to keep his money without government interference.

Given how bad the Phillies were at the time he bought then, though, he probably didn't resent Roosevelt for drafting some of his players. On the other hand, the war effort probably increased the need for Cox's lumber, so he should have thanked FDR for that.

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November 23, 1943 was a Tuesday. Baseball was out of season. Football was in midweek. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. There was 1 game in the NHL: The Boston Bruins beat the Toronto Maple Leafs, 8-5 at the Boston Garden. Former Leafs star Harvey "Busher" Jackson scored 2 goals against his former team.