Lee MacPhail # 29

Lee MacPhail has died, he was number 29 on the list

Lee MacPhail, Baseball Chief in Pine Tar Game, Dies at 95

Born on Oct. 25, 1917, in Nashville, Tennessee, Leland Stanford MacPhail was from a baseball family. His father, Larry, was a long-time Major League Baseball executive and served as general manager of the Cincinnati Reds, Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Yankees. They are the only father and son members of the Hall of Fame. His son, Andy, served as president of the Baltimore Orioles and Chicago Cubs and general manager of the Minnesota Twins.

“Baseball history has lost a great figure,” Jane Forbes Clark, chairwoman of the Hall, said in a press release. “He will always be remembered in Cooperstown as a man of exemplary kindness and a man who always looked after the best interests of the game.”

Before serving as American League president from 1974 to 1984, MacPhail was president and general manager of the Yankees from 1966 to 1974 and general manager of the Orioles.

The AL Championship Series Most Valuable Player Award is named for him.

As league president, MacPhail oversaw the 1981 players’ strike and added expansion teams in Toronto and Seattle. In 1983, he overruled umpires in the Pine-Tar Game involving George Brett, the Kansas City Royals’ third baseman, against the Yankees in New York.

After Brett’s ninth-inning home run put the Royals ahead 5- 4, plate umpire Tim McClelland called Brett out because the player had covered more than 18 inches of the bat’s barrel in pine tar, giving the Yankees the victory.

MacPhail upheld the Royals’ protest and the game resumed three weeks later from the point of Brett’s home run, resulting in a Kansas City victory. 

Lee MacPhail graduated from Swarthmore College and entered baseball in his father's Brooklyn Dodger organization, became business manager of the Toronto Maple Leafs of the International League in 1942, then served in the United States Navy during World War II. He joined the Yankees when Larry MacPhail became a co-owner of the team in 1945.

The younger MacPhail rose through the Yankees system, eventually becoming farm system director in the late 1940s (after his father sold his one-third share and left baseball) and contributing to the organization's seven World Series championships from 1949 to 1958. He then moved to the Baltimore Orioles front office as general manager and, later, club president. During MacPhail's seven-year stewardship (1959–65), the Orioles became pennant contenders in the American League, winning 612 of 1,118 games (.547) and finishing in the league's first division four times. Led by Most Valuable Player Brooks Robinson, the 1964 Orioles finished only two games behind the pennant-winning Yankees.

At the time of his departure for the commissioner's office in November 1965, MacPhail and his successor, Harry Dalton, were beginning negotiations with the Reds for a blockbuster trade that would bring Frank Robinson to Baltimore; Robinson would lead the Orioles to the 1966 world championship and win the American League Triple Crown and Most Valuable Player award.

After a brief term as top aide to the new commissioner, Eckert, in 1965–66, MacPhail served as the Yankees' general manager from October 14, 1966, through the 1973 season, a rebuilding phase of the Yanks marked by the promotion of Bobby Murcer and Thurman Munson to the club, but no pennants or postseason appearances. The Yankees compiled a record of 569–557 (.505) during MacPhail's term as GM, with one second-place finish (in 1970).

After the 1973 season, in late October, MacPhail was elected the fifth American League president, serving from January 1, 1974, to December 31, 1983. In replacing Joe Cronin, he moved the league's headquarters to New York City from Boston.

Although no AL franchise moved during MacPhail's term, he was in office for the dawning of the free agency era in 1976, and nine of the 12 league clubs in existence in 1974 underwent ownership changes. MacPhail also oversaw the league's 1977 expansion to 14 teams with the creation of the Toronto Blue Jays and the Seattle Mariners, and was credited with bringing an end to the 1981 baseball strike when he stepped in for the owners to handle stalled negotiations. During his ten full years in office, the American League continued to struggle against the National League in All-Star Game competition: it lost the first nine midsummer classics it played under MacPhail's presidency, winning only in his last season, 1983, by a 13–3 score. The Junior Circuit compiled a 4–6 mark in World Series play over the same period.

Former Boston Red Sox second baseman Bobby Doerr, 94, is now the oldest living member of baseball’s Hall.