Banning Mickey Mantle

Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle in 1962

In yet another of his less-than-brilliant moves, baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn 41 years ago today bans Mickey Mantle from the game after the long-retired Hall of Famer takes a $100,000 per year job as a glorified greeter and golfer at an Atlantic City casino.

Four years earlier, Kuhn banishes Willie Mays, another retired Hall of Famer, for the same reason.

Mantle and Mays remain on the game’s banned list until Kuhn finally gets kicked out of office in 1984 and Peter Ueberroth takes over as commissioner.

Within a few months, Ueberroth formally reinstates two of baseball’s greatest icons.