Fred Saigh

Frederick Michael Saigh Jr. (pronounced "sigh") (1905–1999) was a lawyer, real estate investor, and owner of the American professional baseball franchise, the St. Louis Cardinals of Major League Baseball (MLB) from 1948 through 1953.

Fred Saigh was born in Springfield, Illinois, and grew up in Kewanee, Illinois. The son of Lebanese immigrants who owned a chain of grocery stores, Saigh was the oldest of five children. He attended Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois, and graduated from Northwestern University with a law degree in 1926, at age 21. and became a highly successful tax and corporate lawyer and investor in St. Louis. He apprenticed in a law office and earned his license in 1928.

One of Fred Saigh's early ventures was a company that operated cigarette machines, but that went bankrupt. In the 1940s, he owned prime office buildings in downtown St. Louis. The buildings were two famous landmarks, the Railway Exchange Building, which headquartered The Famous-Barr Co. retail chain, and Scruggs-Vandervoort-Barney building.