Buying the Phillies

William Cox and friend at Philadelphia’s Shibe Park

The process for the deep-pocketed Carpenter family to acquire the Philadelphia Phillies starts 80 years ago today as baseball commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis permanently bans Phillies owner William Cox.

Landis banishes Cox — seen here during the 1940s at Philadelphia’s Shibe Park — after determining Cox bet on his woebegone team.

Cox remains the last person Major League Baseball permanently bans until Pete Rose in 1989, also for gambling on the game.

The Carpenter family’s cost in 1943 to buy the Phillies is $400,000.

Bob Carpenter

With Cox gone, Bob Carpenter, 28 years old at the time, becomes the Phillies’ team president and the franchise stays in his family until 1981.

Motivating the sale in 1981 is the increasing frustration of Ruly Carpenter, Bob Carpenter’s son, over the fairly new and pricey reality of free agency.

Specifically, Ruly Carpenter is aghast at his co-owners’ bright-shiny-object obsession to throw money at serviceable-but-hardly-spectacular players like outfielder Claudell Washington, who in 1980 signs a five-year contract with the Atlanta Braves for $3.5 million.

Small money in today’s game, but really big money back then, considering in his first season with the Braves in 1981 the remarkably average Washington earns nearly four times more than the average major leaguer.

“It has become apparent to me that some deeply ingrained philosophical differences exist between the Carpenter family and some of the other owners as to how the baseball business should be conducted,” Carpenter says before selling the Phillies for $30 million to group of investors with team executive Bill Giles as its frontman.

“What we’re really talking about is the dramatic escalation of salaries … enough is enough,” Carpenter says. “I just don’t think we can continue to operate on this basis.”

Others can, including John Middleton, the billionaire who today is the Phillies’ majority shareholder.

The team’s current value: approximately $2.8 billion – or about 7,000 times what the Carpenter family pays for the franchise 80 years ago.

Ruly Carpenter, left, and Bill Giles in 1981