Talk:Bowie Kuhn

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When Hank Aaron broke Ruth's record[edit]

I believe that Kuhn pointedly did not attend the game where Hank Aaron broke Ruth's record. This was a clear snub (imagine today's commissioner not being there) and deserves a factual mention in this article. I don't have time to verify at the moment so I'll leave this in the discussion area. User:70.23.17.42 05:04, 7 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • The stuff about the Hall and the 715th homer are absolutely true. I still have an audio tape somewhere of the 715th homer from TV, with Kubek telling Curt Gowdy and Joe Garagiola that he was "personally disappointed" that Kuhn was not there. I can't necessarily confirm the assertion about the 1982 and 1983 All Star Games. Wahkeenah 14:28, 18 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes, it is true that Bowie Kuhn was not in attendance on the night that Hank Aaron hit his 715th HR. But to interpret that as being the Commissioner's way of snubbing Aaron is to ignore several important facts.

1) After the 1973 season ended, with Aaron just one HR shy of tying Babe Ruth's record, Kuhn invited Aaron to sit next to him in the commissioner's box during the 1973 World Series. And in fact, he was even given the honor of throwing out the first pitch of the WS, an honor not often given to a player who is still active. 2) Before the 1974 season started, the Atlanta Braves originally intended to sit Aaron down for the entire 3 game series at Cincinnati so that homeruns #714 and 715 would be hit in Atlanta. Kuhn, who was in Cincinnati to attend the Braves-Reds series, squashed that plan by declaring that the Braves had to play Aaron in at least 2 of the 3 games at Cincy. Braves management reluctantly complied. Hmmm, that order doesn't exactly sound like the actions of a person going out of his way to avoid seeing Aaron's record tying and breaking HRs, does it? 3) Hank Aaron hit homerun #714 in his first at-bat of the 1974 season at Cincinnati with Kuhn in attendance. The game was momentarily halted so that Aaron could receive congratulations from well-wishers, including that of Kuhn and VP Gerald Ford. 4) Kuhn was also in attendance for the Braves' following two games at Riverfront Stadium. Aaron didn't play in the second game. He played in the third game, but didn't hit a homerun in 3 at-bats. When you consider all of the above things that the commissioner did with regards to Aaron, it hardly seems fair not to give Bowie Kuhn the benefit of the doubt that he had an engagement that he could not break on the night of April 8th, 1974. Besides, hitting homeruns is not something that is predetermined. HR #715 could have occurred on April 7th, it could have happened on April 9th, who knows? We're not talking about something that could have been predicted down to an exact day, like a retirement ceremony or a player setting a new record for consecutive games played. Was Commissioner Kuhn guilty of racial insensitivity toward minorities during his tenure? Perhaps. But using his absence on the night that Aaron hit his record-breaking homerun to support this assertion is weak when all the facts are brought to light. In the interest of fairness, I think the second bullet in the "Racial Insensitivity" section should be removed.

  • You have a point, and I have broadened the category to "Racial insensitivity and other criticisms". Kuhn had a knack (seemingly inherited by Bud Selig) for doing stuff that seemed to be the opposite of good common sense or public relations. He's not alone that way. Most every baseball commissioner has been savaged by the press, the lone exception possibly being Landis, at least until after he was safely dead (I think he had everybody scared of him). Wahkeenah 23:54, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • I don't think changing the name of the category adequately settles the issue of providing a fair and balanced account of Bowie Kuhn's handling of Henry Aaron breaking the all-time home run record. If someone insists on mentioning Kuhn's failure to be in the ballpark on the very night that Aaron hit the record-breaking homerun, then it is only fair to mention that Kuhn was there when Aaron tied the record.
  • Hopefully that controversy is sufficiently covered in the article now. I could also add his meddling with the A's attempts to sell some of their higher-priced players, another non-race-related criticism. Wahkeenah 04:41, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This article has a drug problem[edit]

It has a section titled "Kuhn's war on drugs," but it doesn't provide convincing evidence that he waged much of a war. It begins by describing Darrell Porter's paranoid belief that Kuhn was out to get him. This can hardly be called evidence of such a war. The Royals let Porter take part of the 1980 season off to get his alcohol and drug problem under control and then let him return. He continued to play past the end of Kuhn's term as commissioner. Next comes an account of Kuhn's decision to issue lifetime passes to the former Iran hostages, which is totally irrelevant. Finally, there's the account of his suspension of four Royals--after they had been arrested. The section on Kuhn's failure to win a third term as commissioner has an unsourced statement attributing this failure to bitterness over the 1981 strike and opposition to Kuhn's supposed war on drugs. You could find support for the former assertion, but not for the latter. Kuhn suspended the four Royals after his attempt to win a third term failed. The Pittsburgh drug trials and the death of Len Bias took place during the term of Peter Ueberroth, Kuhn's successor. He responded by proposing drug tests for players, which is more like a war.Robert O'Rourke (talk) 22:47, 3 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Asset protection[edit]

Does anyone have enough information to include the specifics of Kuhn's asset protection plan in a Florida mansion after he filed bankruptcy when his law practice failed?

  • I haven't done any checking, but I believe he simply sold his New Jersey home and used the proceeds to buy a home in Florida, which would be protected from his creditors by Florida law.Robert O'Rourke (talk) 02:32, 6 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hank Aaron[edit]

Kuhn ordered Atlanta to play Aaron in at least two of the first three games of the season at Cincinnati. So I don't see how Kuhn can be described as "inadvertently" being in the middle of that situation, when he obviously injected himself into the middle of it. Mulehead126 15:35, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

WikiProject class rating[edit]

This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 15:11, 9 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Photo request[edit]

Well, here's an obit from 2007,[1] containing a pic that's credited to wikipedia! One guess: Some deletionist clobbered it here. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 04:22, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

And the image was clobbered in summer 2007,[2] on the strength of one comment from an editor with a grand total of 2 edits in wikipedia. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 04:34, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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