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Bill DeWitt | |
|---|---|
 DeWitt in 1941 | |
| Born | William Orville DeWitt Sr. (1902-08-03)August 3, 1902 St. Louis, Missouri, U.S. |
| Died | March 4, 1982(1982-03-04) (aged 79) Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S. |
| Occupation | Baseball executive |
William Orville DeWitt Sr. (August 3, 1902 — March 4, 1982) was an Americanprofessional baseball executive and club owner whose career inMajor League Baseball (MLB) spanned more than 60 years. DeWitt held multiple ownership and upper management positions in the major leagues, includinggeneral manager and owner of both theSt. Louis Browns andCincinnati Reds,chairman of the board of theChicago White Sox, andpresident of theDetroit Tigers.
His sonWilliam DeWitt Jr. is currently the principal owner and managing partner of theSt. Louis Cardinals, while grandsonWilliam III is the Cardinals' president.[1]
DeWitt grew up inSt. Louis. One of his first jobs, in1916, was selling soda pop at the St. Louis Browns' home field,Sportsman's Park, and working as an office boy during his summer vacation. He began his formal baseball career with the Cardinals as a protégé ofBranch Rickey, who moved from the Browns to the Redbirds in April 1917 and would become a legendary executive and member of theBaseball Hall of Fame. As a young man, DeWitt studied law at night atWashington University in St. Louis, passed theMissouri Bar exam,[2] and became the first treasurer of the Cardinals.
DeWitt ultimately joined the Browns, the city's underdogAmerican League (AL) team, in November 1936 as minority owner (initially in partnership with majority stockholderDonald Lee Barnes) and general manager.[3]
The Browns were cash-strapped and struggling to survive as the second-ranked team in one of the smallest markets in the big leagues, duringThe Great Depression. The team had drawn only 80,922 fans during the entire1935 season.[4]
"We operated close to the belt. We had to," DeWitt told author William B. Mead in the 1978 bookEven the Browns: Baseball During World War II.[5]
"Once we ran out of cash. Barnes tried to get the board of directors to put up some money. They said, 'No! That's money down the rat hole.' A lot wealthy guys, too ... The Browns had a hell of a time because the Cardinals were so popular and the Browns couldn't do a damned thing. We didn't have any attendance money to build up the ball club with. Most of the clubs had players in theminors that were better than some of the ones we had on the Browns."[5]
The Browns' attendance perked up when they were allowed to play morenight home games than other AL teams. Meanwhile, Rickey disciple DeWitt managed to use some of his scant resources to strengthen the Browns'farm system andscouting department, signing and developingVern Stephens,Al Zarilla, andJack Kramer—all future major league stars.[5] He also attempted to add depth and unearth hidden talent by trading the Browns' few veteran assets, such aspitcherBobo Newsom, for second-string players or minor leaguers with other organizations.
Still, the team was nearly moved toLos Angeles after the1941 season; however, the American League's secret vote on the transfer was scheduled for the week of December 8, and theattack on Pearl Harbor on Sunday, December 7, plunged the U.S. intoWorld War II and saved the Browns for St. Louis for another dozen seasons.[6][7]
In1944, under DeWitt's leadership as general manager, the Browns captured their only American League pennant. They won only 89 games (losing 65), but outlasted theDetroit Tigers by a single game. They drew as theirWorld Series opponents their formidable tenants at Sportsman's Park, the Cardinals, who had won 105 games to breeze to their third consecutiveNational League championship. In the all-St. Louis1944 World Series, the Browns took the opener and Game 3, but then they dropped the final three games to the Redbirds, who were in the process of winning three World Series titles in a five-year span. Nevertheless, DeWitt was named 1944Major League Executive of the Year byThe Sporting News to recognize his achievement.
The Browns'pennant is often downplayed by observers because it occurred during the height of the World War II manpower shortage, when most of the top American League players were in military service.[5] But DeWitt's wartime Browns were one of the more successful teams in the American League, also posting winning campaigns in1942 and1945. During their pennant-winning 1944 season, the Browns drew more fans (508,644) than the Cardinals (461,968) for the first time since 1925.[4][8] In 1945, they employedPete Gray, anoutfielder who, despite having only one arm, had become a capable minor league player. However, in1946, the first postwar season, the Browns fell back into the second division and never enjoyed another winning campaign in St. Louis. DeWitt was forced to sell Stephens, Kramer and Zarilla—along with pitcherEllis Kinder, a future 20-game-winner—to the wealthyBoston Red Sox to keep the team solvent.
DeWitt and the Browns also were among the vanguard, albeit only briefly, of MLB teams to break thebaseball color line: in1947, they became the third club tointegrate by purchasing the contracts ofHank Thompson andWillard Brown from theKansas City Monarchs. Thompson made his MLB debut July 17 (only 12 days afterLarry Doby of theCleveland Indians had integrated the American League) and Brown two days later. But the experiment fizzled; the players performed below expectations and encountered resistance from their manager,Muddy Ruel, and some of their white teammates.[2][9] They were sent back to the Monarchs late in August after only 41 total hits.
DeWitt and his brother Charlie (1900–1967), the Browns' traveling secretary, bought control of the club from majority ownerRichard C. Muckerman inFebruary 1949, but the team's struggles on the field and at the box office continued: they lost 101 and 96 games, and drew an average of 259,000 fans a season, in 1949–1950. The DeWitts bought the team with notes totaling $1 million that were due in 1954, and the team's revenues over the next two years did not even begin to service the debt. DeWitt was only able to stay afloat by selling most of the Browns' prospects for cash.
Finally, the DeWitts sold the Browns toBill Veeck inJune 1951. Bill DeWitt remained in the Browns' front office until Veeck was forced to sell the team in September 1953.[10] They then moved toBaltimore to become the modernOrioles franchise in1954.
DeWitt then served as assistant general manager of theNew York Yankees from 1954–1956 and as administrator of the "Professional Baseball Fund" in the office of theCommissioner of Baseball until September 1959, when he became president andde facto general manager of theDetroit Tigers.
In his 14 months as the Tigers' president, DeWitt participated in three significant trades with swap-happyCleveland Indians GMFrank Lane during the1960 season.
DeWitt, however, moved on himself in November 1960, replacingGabe Paul as GM of theCincinnati Reds.[11] He made a number of deals for players such asJoey Jay (a disappointment with theMilwaukee Braves who became a 20-game winner in Cincinnati),Don Blasingame, andGene Freese, and the Reds went on to win the1961National League (NL) pennant after winning just 67 games in 1960. OwnerPowel Crosley Jr. died suddenly before the start of the 1961 season. One March 23, 1962, DeWitt purchased 100 percent ownership of the Reds from the Crosley estate for $4.27 million.[12]
The Reds contended for the first five years of DeWitt's six-season tenure. They fell three games short of repeating in 1962 and one game short of the NL pennant in 1964, a season marred by the terminal illness of their 45-year-old manager,Fred Hutchinson, who was suffering fromlung cancer. DeWitt's Reds benefited from a productive farm system, withJim Maloney,Johnny Edwards,Pete Rose,Tony Pérez,Lee May, andTommy Helms making their debuts through 1966, andJohnny Bench reachingTriple-A in only his second pro season.
During the1965 campaign, the Reds led the National League in runs scored (825) and run differential (+121), but finished in fourth place, eight games behind theLos Angeles Dodgers, due to an inability to win close games. Sorely in need of mound help, DeWitt controversially traded futureHall of Fame outfielderFrank Robinson to the Orioles for two pitchers and a minor league outfielder; the outrage over the trade made it difficult for one of the pitchers, former Orioles standoutMilt Pappas, to adjust to pitching in Cincinnati. The trade later was made famous in the1988 movieBull Durham, whereSusan Sarandon's character says, "Bad trades are a part of baseball; I mean who can forget Frank Robinson for Milt Pappas, for God's sake?")
After announcing the trade, DeWitt famously defended it by calling Robinson "not a young 30." In his first season with the Orioles, Robinson won the Triple Crown, was unanimously voted theAmerican LeagueMost Valuable Player, and led the Orioles to theirfirst World Series title. Pappas, not yet 27 when the Robinson trade was made, won 28 games in his first two seasons in Cincinnati before being sent to theAtlanta Braves after beginning the 1968 season 2–5. Among the players coming to Cincinnati in that trade would be future bullpen aceClay Carroll. Another player involved in the Robinson deal wasDick Simpson, a physical specimen and minor league standout who was both fast and powerful, but could not hit major league pitching. In January 1968, Simpson would be traded to the Cardinals in exchange for future AL batting championAlex Johnson.
The Robinson deal somewhat clouded DeWitt's Cincinnati legacy, although many of the players he had signed or developed became key members of the team's "Big Red Machine" dynasty of the 1970s. On December 5,1966, he sold the Reds for $8 million to a 13-person syndicate that was led byFrancis L. Dale and included Bill DeWitt Jr.[13] One month later, the senior DeWitt was succeeded byBob Howsam as general manager.
In 1967, DeWitt's name was briefly linked with an ownership group that unsuccessfully sought anexpansion team forBuffalo, New York, as both leagues announced plans to grow from 10 to 12 teams in1969.[14] DeWitt's last official post in baseball was as chairman and minority owner of theChicago White Sox from 1975 to 1981, working with the flamboyant Veeck once again.
DeWitt died inCincinnati,Ohio, on March 4, 1982, at age 79.[3]
| Preceded by n/a | St. Louis Brownsgeneral manager 1937–1951 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by Harvey Hansen | Detroit Tigerspresident 1959–1960 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Detroit Tigersgeneral manager 1959–1960 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Cincinnati Redsgeneral manager 1960–1966 | Succeeded by |