The making of a czar

Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis

Less than three weeks after the indictment of eight Chicago White Sox players for their part in fixing the 1919 World Series, baseball’s owners 104 years ago today unanimously hire a federal judge named Kenesaw Mountain Landis as the game’s first true commissioner.

The owners initially want to give Landis a seven-year contract, which Landis rejects in favor of an authoritarian rule that keeps him in office for as long as he wants.

Landis also gets the owners to give him the final say as judge, jury and executioner in all rulings.

The owners, fearing for the game’s integrity after the White Sox scandal, quickly cave to Landis’ demands.

They also give him a salary of $50,000 – less the $7,500 salary that Landis still collects while remaining a federal judge, a dual role Landis keeps only until 1922. Landis then insists the owners pay him a tax-free expense account worth, coincidentally, $7,500.

Among Landis’ first decisions as commissioner is to permanently ban the eight White Sox players that prosecutors determine are part of the 1919 World Series fix.

Landis stays on as commissioner until his death in 1944 at the age of 78.

Not until after Landis is gone and is replaced by Happy Chandler are Black players allowed in what has been the Whites-only Major Leagues since Fleet Walker plays 42 games in 1884 for Toledo in the American Association.