biography
| name: |
Landis, Kenesaw Mountain
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| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1866–1944)
|
| biography:
| Judge and baseball commissioner, born in Millville, Ohio, USA. A lawyer appointed federal district judge in Chicago (1905), he gained attention for his dramatic $30 million ruling against Standard Oil (later reversed) and for patriotic cases connected with the Espionage Act of 1917. As baseball's autocratic first commissioner (1920–44), he banned for life eight players who had previously been acquitted in the ‘Black Sox’ scandal of 1919. He earned his reputation for integrity and for re-establishing the reputation and integrity of baseball, but his insistence on excluding African-Americans from organized baseball prevented their participation in the national pastime until after his death. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1944. |
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