Larry MacPhail
| Larry MacPhail | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
Leland Stanford MacPhail February 3, 1890 Cass City, Michigan |
| Died | October 1, 1975 (aged 85) Miami, Florida |
| Resting place | Elkland Township Cemetery, Cass City |
| Education | Beloit College, University of Michigan, George Washington University Law School |
| Occupation | Lawyer, Department store executive, Major League Baseball executive, Racehorse owner/breeder |
| Board member of | Brooklyn Dodgers, New York Yankees, Bowie Race Track |
| Spouse(s) | 1) Inez Frances Thompson 2) Jean Bennett Wanamaker |
| Children | Children with Inez: Bill, Lee, Marian Child with Jean: daughter |
| Parent(s) | Curtis W. MacPhail |
Leland Stanford "Larry" MacPhail, Sr. (February 3, 1890 – October 1, 1975) was an American lawyer and an executive and innovator in Major League Baseball. He served as an executive with several professional baseball teams, including the Cincinnati Reds, Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Yankees. MacPhail's sons and grandsons were also sports executives. He was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1978.
MacPhail was born in Cass City, Michigan on February 3, 1890. His father founded State Savings Bank of Scottville, Michigan, in 1882 as well as twenty other small banks in that state. He obtained an LL.B. from the George Washington University Law School, where he became friends with Branch Rickey. He worked for a time with a Chicago law firm. Prior to World War I Larry MacPhail was an executive of a department store in Nashville, Tennessee.
During World War I, he served as an artillery captain in France and Belgium. He accompanied his commander, Colonel Luke Lea, on an unsanctioned mission to Amerongen in the Netherlands in January 1919 to attempt to arrest the exiled German Kaiser, Wilhelm II, and bring him to the Paris Peace Conference to be tried for war crimes.
After his discharge from military service, MacPhail opened a law office in Columbus, Ohio, where he eventually purchased an interest in the Columbus Red Birds, a minor league affiliate of the St. Louis Cardinals. That was short lived, but in 1933 he was hired by the Cincinnati Reds and became its chief executive and general manager. MacPhail had been recommended for the Reds position by Branch Rickey, who said that MacPhail was "a wild man at times, but he'll do the job." After leaving the Reds, he spent about a year with his father's investment business before becoming executive vice-president and general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1938. He was promoted to team president, a position that had been vacant for about a year after the death of the previous team president Stephen McKeever, on May 4, 1939. In 1939, he received the Sporting News Executive of the Year Award.
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