The only experience William Dole Eckert, 56, had with baseball was as a high school first baseman back in Madison, Ind. Last week the 20 owners of the major-league ballclubs elected Eckert to succeed Ford Frick for a seven-year term as baseball's $65,000-a-year commissioner.
The theory was that Eckert, a retired lieutenant general, who collected a chestful of medals commanding a B-17 bomber group in Europe and later rose to Comptroller of the Air Force, would give the office back some of the dignity it had lost since autocratic Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis ruled the leagues from 1921 to 1944....
To continue reading:
or
Log-In
