William B. Cox
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William Drought Cox (1909–1989) was an American businessman and sports executive.


Early life

Cox was born in 1909, growing up on Riverside Drive on
Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
's
Upper West Side The Upper West Side (UWS) is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It is bounded by Central Park on the east, the Hudson River on the west, West 59th Street to the south, and West 110th Street to the north. The Upper West ...
. He graduated from high school at the age of 15, then attended
New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then- Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, th ...
and
Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...
. After working in commercial and investment banking, he joined a lumber firm, becoming that company's president at the age of 27. He later founded his own lumber brokerage.


New York Yankees (AFL III)

Cox first entered the sports world when he headed a group that bought the
New York Yankees The New York Yankees are an American professional baseball team based in the New York City borough of the Bronx. The Yankees compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East division. They are one of ...
of the
third American Football League The American Football League, also known retrospectively as the AFL III to distinguish it from earlier organizations of that name, was a professional American football league that operated from 1940–1941. It was created when three teams, the o ...
in 1941. He also served as the league's president. After changing the team's name to the
New York Americans The New York Americans, colloquially known as the Amerks, were a professional ice hockey team based in New York City from 1925 to 1942. They were the third expansion team in the history of the National Hockey League (NHL) and the second to play ...
, Cox's first major splash was signing Heisman Trophy winner
Tom Harmon Thomas Dudley Harmon (September 28, 1919 – March 15, 1990), known as Tom Harmon, as well as by the nickname "Old 98", was an American football player, military pilot, actor, and sports broadcaster. Harmon grew up in Gary, Indiana, and playe ...
and complete a backfield tandem with
John Kimbrough John Alec Kimbrough (June 14, 1918 – May 8, 2006) was a college athlete, a member of the Texas Legislature, the star of two western movies and a rancher. His older brother Frank Kimbrough served as head football coach at Baylor and West Texa ...
. Soon afterward, Cox was named league president as well. He had ambitious plans for the Yankees, but the outbreak of World War II resulted in several players from the Yankees and other teams either enlisting or being drafted into the military. With several teams' rosters depleted to the point that they could not field viable teams, Cox announced the league would shut down for the war's duration. As it turned out, it never returned. He also supplied the
piling A deep foundation is a type of foundation that transfers building loads to the earth farther down from the surface than a shallow foundation does to a subsurface layer or a range of depths. A pile or piling is a vertical structural elemen ...
s used to reinforce the
Panama Canal The Panama Canal ( es, Canal de Panamá, link=no) is an artificial waterway in Panama that connects the Atlantic Ocean with the Pacific Ocean and divides North and South America. The canal cuts across the Isthmus of Panama and is a condui ...
during the war.


Philadelphia Phillies

In , Cox bought the Philadelphia Phillies of
Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...
's
National League The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the National League (NL), is the older of two leagues constituting Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, and the world's oldest extant professional team ...
. Financially strapped owner
Gerald Nugent Gerald Paul Nugent, Sr. (October 25, 1892 – November 25, 1970) was the owner of the Philadelphia Phillies baseball team of the National League from 1932 through 1942. A Philadelphia native, Nugent graduated from Northeast High School, where ...
had barely survived the season, needing an advance from the league just to go to spring training. Realizing there was no way he could operate the team in 1943, he initially planned to sell it to Bill Veeck, only to have those plans derailed by
Baseball Commissioner The Commissioner of Baseball is the chief executive officer of Major League Baseball (MLB) and the associated Minor League Baseball (MiLB) – a constellation of leagues and clubs known as "organized baseball". Under the direction of the Commiss ...
Kenesaw Mountain Landis Kenesaw Mountain Landis (; November 20, 1866 – November 25, 1944) was an American jurist who served as a United States federal judge from 1905 to 1922 and the first Commissioner of Baseball from 1920 until his death. He is remembered for his ...
when word got out that Veeck planned to stock the team with
Negro league The Negro leagues were United States professional baseball leagues comprising teams of African Americans and, to a lesser extent, Latin Americans. The term may be used broadly to include professional black teams outside the leagues and it may be ...
stars. Landis pressured National League president
Ford Frick Ford Christopher Frick (December 19, 1894 – April 8, 1978) was an American sportswriter and baseball executive. After working as a teacher and as a sportswriter for the ''New York American'', he served as public relations director of the Natio ...
to take over the franchise. The league sold it to Cox a week later. Although long thought to be false based on press accounts of the time, evidence has surfaced that Nugent indeed planned to sell the Phillies to Veeck, only to have Landis step in and engineer the sale to Cox. Cox headed a 30-man syndicate that outbid another group headed by construction magnate
John B. Kelly Sr. John Brendan Kelly Sr. (October 4, 1889 – June 20, 1960) was an American triple Olympic champion, the first in the sport of rowing. The Philadelphia-based Kelly also was a multimillionaire in the bricklaying and construction industry. He also ...
, buying the Phillies for $190,000 and a $50,000 note on March 15, 1943. At the age of only 33 at the time, he was the youngest owner in the league. At the time Cox took over, the Phillies had been the dregs of the National League for a quarter century; they had finished above .500 only once since , at least in part because the team's owners had been unwilling or unable to spend the money necessary to build a winner. Cox, however, was not afraid to spend what it took to get the Phillies out of the cellar. He significantly increased the team's payroll and devoted significant resources to player development (including the farm system) for the first time in the history of the franchise. He also hired
Bucky Harris Stanley Raymond "Bucky" Harris (November 8, 1896 – November 8, 1977) was an American professional baseball second baseman, manager and executive. While Harris played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Washington Senators and Detroit Tiger ...
, who had won two pennants and one
World Series The World Series is the annual championship series of Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, contested since 1903 between the champion teams of the American League (AL) and the National League (NL). The winner of the World ...
with the Washington Senators, as manager. However, Cox was a very hands-on owner; as Rich Westcott of the
Society for American Baseball Research The Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) is a membership organization dedicated to fostering the research and dissemination of the history and record of baseball primarily through the use of statistics. Established in Cooperstown, New ...
put it, he tried to run the Phillies "with the same strict regimen with which he ran his lumber company." He'd played baseball at Yale, and still thought of himself as a star athlete. Believing the team needed to be better conditioned, he hired his high school track coach, Harold Bruce, as team trainer. Cox even suited up for workouts, and frequently showed up at the clubhouse before and after games. All of this grated on Harris, and when he protested against Cox's interference, Cox fired him on July 27 at a press conference, without bothering to inform Harris. The players threatened to go on strike in protest, but Harris urged them to drop those plans after Cox threatened legal action. Despite this, the Phillies showed signs of respectability for the first time in years, and they finished 64-90, a healthy 22-game improvement from 1942, to get out of the cellar for the first time in five years. Although they were still a long way from contention, the long-beleaguered Phillies fans appreciated what Cox was trying to do. The Phillies attracted over 466,000 fans, more than double their 1942 gate and their best attendance since . At the time of Harris' firing, the Phillies had already won 38 games, just four fewer than they had won in the previous season. More importantly in the long run, the farm system had begun developing the players who would help lead the Phillies to the
1950 World Series The 1950 World Series was the 47th World Series between the American and National Leagues for the championship of Major League Baseball. The Philadelphia Phillies as 1950 champions of the National League and the New York Yankees, as 1950 Amer ...
. On July 28, Harris dropped a bombshell at his hotel room in Philadelphia: he had evidence that Cox was betting on his own team. When Landis got wind of Harris' charges, he launched an immediate investigation. Initially, Cox denied any wrongdoing, but conceded that some of his business associates bet on the Phillies. As the investigation progressed, Cox changed his story and admitted making some "sentimental" bets on the Phillies, and he claimed that he didn't know it was against the rules. This made no difference to Landis, who suspended Cox indefinitely on November 23, 1943. Cox immediately resigned as team president, but appealed Landis' ruling 11 days later. At the December 4 hearing, Harris testified that he'd heard Cox's secretary asking about the odds for a game between the Phillies and Brooklyn Dodgers; when Harris asked, "''Do you mean to tell me Mr. Cox is betting on baseball?''" the secretary replied that it was common knowledge in the Phillies office. On the basis of this and other evidence, Landis ordered that Cox be banned for life, thus making Cox the first non-player to be banned from baseball by Landis; he is the last owner to be banned for life as of 2021. Bob Carpenter Sr., scion of the Delaware-based duPont family, bought the team with his son for an estimated $400,000 on Nov. 23, 1943, the same day that Cox was banned. The Carpenter family maintained ownership until 1981.


Professional soccer leagues

In 1960, Cox led entrepreneurs in creating the
International Soccer League The International Soccer League was a U.S.-based soccer league which was formed in 1960 and collapsed in 1965. The League, affiliated with the American Soccer League, featured guest teams primarily from Europe and some from Asia, South America, C ...
, an annual summer competition that would bring professional soccer teams from various nations, as well as a team of American-born players, the
New York Americans The New York Americans, colloquially known as the Amerks, were a professional ice hockey team based in New York City from 1925 to 1942. They were the third expansion team in the history of the National Hockey League (NHL) and the second to play ...
to play against each other in New York City. The International Soccer League competition lasted for six summers, and would stage matches in other cities during its existence. In 1967, Cox and other sportsmen launched the National Professional Soccer League in 10 American cities.Dennis J. Seese, ''The Rebirth of Professional Soccer in America: The Strange Days of the United Soccer Association'' (Rowman & Littlefield, 2015) p19 After a merger with the rival
United Soccer Association The United Soccer Association was a professional soccer league featuring teams based in the United States and Canada. The league survived only one season before merging with the National Professional Soccer League to form the North American S ...
, five of the NPSL teams (the Atlanta Chiefs, Baltimore Bays, Oakland Clippers, St. Louis Stars and Toronto Falcons) would become part of the
North American Soccer League The North American Soccer League may refer to: *North American Soccer League (1968–1984), a former Division I league *North American Soccer League (2011–2017) The North American Soccer League (NASL) was a professional men's soccer league b ...
. Cox retired to other business interests and died in Mount Kisco, New York in 1989.


References/external links

* Holtzman, Jerome
Turn back the clock … 1943: owner William Cox, the last man banned before Pete Rose
Baseball Digest ''Baseball Digest'' is a baseball magazine resource, published in Orlando, Florida by Grandstand Publishing, LLC. It is the longest-running baseball magazine in the United States. History and profile It was created by Herbert F. Simons, a spor ...
, August 2004.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cox, William D. Philadelphia Phillies owners Philadelphia Phillies executives Major League Baseball executives Major League Baseball owners Baseball controversies Major League Baseball controversies Sportspeople involved in betting scandals Yale University alumni 1909 births 1989 deaths People from the Upper West Side Sportspeople banned for life