Alva Bradley II (February 28, 1884 – March 30, 1953) was an American businessman and baseball team executive.

Early life

Bradley was born in Cleveland to a prominent family, the eldest of five children of Morris A. Bradley and the former Anna A. Leininger. He was named after his grandfather, Captain Alva Bradley, who also gave inventor

Thomas Edison Thomas Alva Edison (February11, 1847October18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These inventions, ...

his middle name of Alva. (He was the best friend of Edison's father Samuel.) Alva Bradley was the owner of the

Cleveland Indians The Cleveland Guardians are an American professional baseball team based in Cleveland. The Guardians compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) American League Central, Central Division. Since , the team ...

in the 1940s and helped start what became

Case Western Reserve University Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) is a Private university, private research university in Cleveland, Ohio, United States. It was established in 1967 by a merger between Western Reserve University and the Case Institute of Technology. Case ...

. Morris Bradley was the only son of Capt. Bradley, inheriting his father's successful shipbuilding company and at one point was one of the largest real estate owners in Cleveland. Bradley attended the

University School University School, commonly referred to as US, is an all-boys, private, Junior Kindergarten–12 school with two campus locations in the Greater Cleveland area of Ohio. The campus located in Shaker Heights serves junior kindergarten through ...

of Cleveland and Cornell, along with this brother Charles, who was 20 months younger than Alva, graduating in 1908.

Professional life

He was president of the group that bought the

in 1927 for $1 million, and which sold the team to Bill Veeck in 1946. While he was the team's president, Bradley was not the majority shareholder. Other members of the ownership group included his brother, Charles C. Bradley, with whom he invested $175,000, John Sherwin Sr. ($300,000), Percy Morgan ($200,000),

Newton D. Baker Newton Diehl Baker Jr. (December 3, 1871 – December 25, 1937) was an American lawyer, Georgist,Noble, Ransom E. "Henry George and the Progressive Movement." The American Journal of Economics and Sociology, vol. 8, no. 3, 1949, pp. 259–269. w ...

($25,000), attorney Joseph C. Hostetler ($25,000) and the

Van Sweringen brothers Oris Paxton Van Sweringen (April 24, 1879 – November 22, 1936) and Mantis James Van Sweringen (July 8, 1881 – December 12, 1935) were American brothers who became railroad barons in order to develop Shaker Heights, Ohio. They are better k ...

($250,000). During Bradley's tenure the team signed teenage strikeout king

Bob Feller Robert William Andrew Feller (November 3, 1918 – December 15, 2010), nicknamed "the Heater from Van Meter", "Bullet Bob", and "Rapid Robert", was an American baseball pitcher who played 18 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Clevel ...

in a controversial move that had to ultimately be resolved by baseball commissioner

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, commissioner of baseball from 1920 until his death. ...

. During the 1940 season Indian players, led by

Mel Harder Melvin Leroy Harder (October 15, 1909 – October 20, 2002), nicknamed "Chief", was an American right-handed starting pitcher, coach and manager in Major League Baseball, who played his entire career with the Cleveland Indians. He spent 42 sea ...

and Ken Keltner, came to him demanding that he fire team manager Ossie Vitt. The Indians, who were labeled "Crybabies" for doing so, lost the pennant race on the last day of the season. Bradley went out on a limb by hiring then 25-year-old

Lou Boudreau Louis Boudreau (July 17, 1917 – August 10, 2001), nicknamed "Old Shufflefoot", "Handsome Lou", and "the Good Kid", was an American professional baseball player and manager. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for 15 seasons, primarily as a ...

as team manager. Bradley had a number of other business interests. He owned a real estate company and was president and treasurer of the United States Coal Company. He served on the boards of several Van Sweringen companies, the

American Shipbuilding Company The American Ship Building Company was the dominant shipbuilder on the Great Lakes before the World War II, Second World War. It started as Cleveland Shipbuilding in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1888 and opened the yard in Lorain, Ohio, in 1898. It chan ...

, Great Lakes Towing Company, and others, and was chairman of Cleveland Builders Supply Company. Bradley was married to the former Marguerite Andrews and had four children: a son and three daughters. He is the great great grandfather of University of Louisiana Ragin Cajuns' pitching phenom Buddy Glass.

References

External links

''New York Times'' Obit, March 30, 1953, retrieved 24 January 2008Findagrave entry
Baseball executives Cleveland Indians executives Cornell University alumni 1884 births 1953 deaths American sports businesspeople Businesspeople from Cleveland 20th-century American businesspeople {{baseball-business-bio-stub